On Jan. 13, the US Transportation Research Board held a panel on “Automation Technology and Transportation,” with senior US government transportation officials. Notably, Jay Merkle the executive director of the FAA’s UAS Integration Office, spoke about urban air mobility (UAM) aircraft.
Hanwha Systems $25M investment in California-based Overair — a spinoff of Karem Aircraft — reached its final approvals, the Korean aerospace systems giant announced on Jan. 15. With the investment, Hanwha now owns a 30% stake in Overair, which is developing the eVTOL Butterfly quad-tiltrotor for the Uber Elevate mission.
On Feb. 4, Wisk announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to establish a passenger transport trial in Canterbury, New Zealand. Wisk’s Cora two-seat eVTOL has been testing in the Canterbury region since 2017. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area and New Zealand, Wisk is an independent company backed by The Boeing Company and Kitty Hawk Corporation (see “Cora + Boeing = Wisk,” Vertiflite Jan/Feb 2020, pg. 40).
The Bell Autonomous Pod Transport (APT) 70 biplane tailsitter drone completed its first beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flight on Jan. 16, traveling along a 10-mile (16-km) path at Choctaw Nation test site under the FAA UAS Integration Pilot Program (UASIPP).
On Feb. 10, Reddit editor Red_Jensen posted a high-resolution image of a large unmanned aircraft hovering at the Mojave Air and Space Port in southern California. The aircraft — N871YT, registered to Toyota — appears to have six lift propellers and no forward thruster. It may be designed as a cargo transporter, with twin outriggers and twin tails.
Bell announced on Feb. 11 that it had signed an MOU with Sumitomo Corporation and Japan Airlines Co., Ltd., to “explore Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) and to foster the required infrastructure and regulatory environment.” The collaboration is intended to “inform the development of an on-demand air mobility ecosystem utilizing Bell’s air mobility solutions including Bell’s Air Taxi, the Nexus 4EX, in Japan” (see “Urban Air Mobility Steals the Show at CES 2020,” Vertiflite, March/April 2020, pg. 62). In addition to the air taxi, which is part of the Uber Elevate initiative, Bell is also developing its own UAM software, called AerOS (an app to request UAM flight service) and a comprehensive fleet management system (including aircraft health and charge status), and will run their own aerial ride sharing program
Global aircraft design and manufacturing company Spirit AeroSystems and Airspace Experience Technologies (ASX) announced on Feb. 17 that they had signed a memorandum of understanding and a definitive agreement to “cooperate on creation of affordable, certified all-electric” VTOL aircraft.
VFS members are well aware of the “Electric VTOL Revolution” that has been underway for several years, with more than 250 electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft concepts on the VFS website, www.eVTOL.news. Most of the helicopter OEMs, most visibly Airbus Helicopters and Bell, have been considering eVTOL and urban air mobility (UAM) options for the future.
In mid-December 2019, Terrafugia, a subsidiary of Geely Technology Group, successfully conducted its first test flight of the TF-2A sub-scale demonstrator. After acquiring the US-based Terrafugia flying car company in 2017, Geely established a research and development team in China, beginning on the TF-2A design in 2019. The subscale TF-2A is all-electric and comprised mainly of composite materials. It has a wingspan of 14.8 ft (4.5 m), a maximum take-off weight of 132 lb (60 kg), and a cruising speed of about 62 mph (100 km/h).
