• Payload to accommodate 2 people including hand luggage
• Increased flight efficiency through aerodynamically shaped rotor beams, a newly introduced stabilizer to create increased stability in flight and additional lift
• Iconic design with fluid lines is a seamless continuation of architectural language of the future VoloPort all the while combining unprecedented technological achievements and user comfort

• 200 kg maximum payload
• 18 brushless DC electric motors (BLDC’s)
• 700kg OEW
• 900 kg MTOW

VoloCity features 9 Lithium Ion Battery Packs and 18 Brushless DC Electric Motors (BLDC’s). Visit the Hangar to read more about the VoloCity’s technical specs.

At this year’s EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Airbus highlighted its eVTOL tilt-wing demonstrator, the Vahana Alpha Two. While the Vahana shows great promise, Airbus rep. Amanda Simpson outlines some of UAM’s Challenges.

Featuring eight 45-kW electric motors and a slightly reworked design, the sleek single-seater was on display at the Airbus booth in Oshkosh. The eVTOL has been in the works for a while, under Airbus’ Silicon Valley based division, A^3. Amanda Simpson, Airbus America’s Vice President for Research and Technology, was present at Oshkosh and weighed in on some of the issues that any UAM ventures would bring.

The all-electric eVTOL was designed with urban air mobility in mind, but potential obstacles to market include battery life and charging speeds. Said Simpson: “There’s only so much energy you can pump into these things over a given period of time. You have to be able to recharge these vehicles when they land. Does that mean swapping out batteries or plugging it in? Where is that energy coming from? How many times can you recharge a battery before you can’t get the maximum utilization out of it? It’s very easy to measure fuel left in a tank, not so much to determine how many megawatt-hours are left in your battery.”

“There are limitations as to what we can do with (existing) batteries,” said Simpson, “The [UAM] vehicles that are out there have a range of about 30 miles. Battery technology is going to have to come along much further if we are going to have 100 percent electric vehicles.”

While the Vahana was created to answer questions, there are still some that remain according to Simpson. “The question is how to demonstrate the capabilities of the aircraft and how do we work with EASA or the FAA to develop regulations to govern these? How do you work with the cities and the urban infrastructure to provide landing places? How do you develop an app for your phone that will allow you to call and schedule service and the whole infrastructure behind that?”

The answer to these questions will likely determine the direction that UAM takes in the next decade.

Why it’s important: UAM aircraft, including any future models that Airbus incorporates into their fleet, will most likely begin as hybrids. While demonstrators such as the Vahana Alpha Two can run purely on electricity in practice, the limitations in battery technology today are simply too high for the commercial and economic demands that would be brought by a UAM market. How these hurdles are approached by competitors in the UAM market will determine what the transportation industry will look like in the next decade.

Sources // EAA AirVenture, AINonline

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The Airbus Vahana prototype has achieved flight with its wings fully transitioned to horizontal cruise mode.

Earlier this year, the Airbus Vahana test aircraft successfully completed a test flight in which the aircraft’s wings rotated partially into horizontal cruise stage, reaching speeds of about 57mph. In the latest test (Vahana’s 66th), the tilt-wing rotates into “full cruise configuration”, allowing the aircraft to reach speeds of over 100mph. Watch the full flight test video from Airbus here:

This latest test flight marks a significant step forward for Airbus, whose eventual goal is to make the Vahana part of a larger UAM system. The version of the Vahana seen here is planned as a demonstration vehicle for airbus to introduce to the public. Although it only has one seat, the Vahana Alpha Two is piloted autonomously, and features a completely finished interior, which will give riders the full sense of what autonomous flight will be like.

A close-up of the Airbus Alpha Vahana Two

According to Zach Lovering, Vice President of UAM Systems for Airbus, the latest full transition flights “represent everything we set out to achieve when we began our flight test campaign.” The Vahana demonstrator is still undergoing testing in Pendleton, Oregon.

The Airbus Vahana represents just one of Airbus’s many bids for UAM flight. Airbus has several prototypes being tested for various types of UAM, including the Airbus Pop.Up Next modular concept, which is capable of both road and air transport, as well as the Airbus CityAirbus, which is designed for intracity transport and completed its first test flight last month. Both vehicles are capable of autonomous flight.

The Airbus CityAirbus, which completed its first test flight last May.

Why it’s important: The successful test of the Airbus Vahana in cruise represents another step forward for Airbus UAM flight. The Vahana has successfully proven Airbus’s concept for tilt-wing transitions,  which is often considered the most difficult aspect of eVTOL design. With this latest achievement, Airbus even more deeply establishes its UAM presence in preparing for the larger industry launch.

Airbus A^3, the Silicon Valley-based division of the Airbus, has long been working on developing its eVTOL concept to improve air mobility for passengers in urban areas. Recently, they publicized reaching the 50 flight test milestone for their first full scale demonstrator, the Vahana Alpha One. Just earlier this week, Airbus AA3 released many more photos of its second demonstrator — named the Alpha Two — to accompany a first sneak peek seen during the publication of the Alpha One milestone.

Airbus’ Vahana Alpha Two eVTOL at Pendleton

“Here you’ll find a first-person perspective of what it might be like to take a seat under the canopy, be personally welcomed by Vahana’s screen, and see the horizon laid out in front of you as you prepare to take off.” Airbus A^3

Interestingly, there will not be a pilot in the cockpit in front of you when you’re on board the Alpha Two. Instead, just a single screen displaying the flight path ahead and an automated flight controls system with real-time autonomous decision-making capabilities. However, for now the Vahana full-scale demonstrator aircraft is remotely controlled in a configuration that the Silicon Valley division of Airbus is flight testing in Pendleton, Oregon.

The new demonstrator will join the first in flight testing at the airport in Pendleton, and also features a complete interior. Aside from enabling experimentation with passenger experience features in the interior, the Vahana Alpha Two also serves as a set of spares for anything that must be replaced on the anginal flight test aircraft, thereby improving the efficiency of the company’s test program. Airbus was generous enough to capture an array of impressive photos at dawn one morning to show us what they have conceived.

“You can just imagine getting to the vertiport for your quick trip to work” Airbus

Airbus also shared a close-up photo of the nose of the Alpha Two, which is loaded with autonomous safety systems able to sense and avoid obstacles in the air. For more photos, check out the A^3 by Airbus media page.

Why it’s important: A finished interior marks another milestone for the Airbus A^3 team, and permits further testing of how passengers will ergonomically integrate with the vehicle. Further, access to the second demonstrator aircraft is expected to accelerate development, such as in the flight control system that is responsible for smoothly transition from vertical to horizontal flight, as well as mitigating any eternal impulses.

In Vahana’s latest test flight, the vehicle exhibits the capabilities of its tilting wing, transitioning from vertical take-off to horizontal flight.

The above video comes from Zach Lovering, project executive for Vahana at A³. The Vahana takes off vertically, tilts its wings for transition into horizontal flight, stops, turns around, and lands. The aircraft flies for 7 minutes at speeds up to 57mph, and altitudes of up to 210 feet.

In a recent Vahana blog post, Lovering mentions that these flights are for testing flight controls, navigation, failure detection, and noise mitigation. While the full-scale model has flown 50 test flights, the sub-scale version has flown 1,277 flights. The full-scale version made its first test flight on January 31st, 2018.

Vahana Alpha Two on the Pendleton, Oregon UAS runway, February 2019.

In the last few months, many top aircraft manufacturers have released vehicle footage to the public. Most recently Boeing showed its ‘Personal Air Vehicle’ (developed in collaboration Boeing’s subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences) taking off, hovering, and landing autonomously. Bell Helicopter brought the ‘Nexus Air Taxi’ to CES 2019 last month, where fans got the chance to sit in the vehicle itself.

Airbus has made progress in of many aspects of Urban Air Mobility, having recently released the blueprint for Airbus Altiscope, an airspace management system, and a small-scale prototype of its Pop.Up Next vehicle in collaboration with Audi. While it’s yet unclear whether Airbus will pursue one of these avenues or all of them, the company has certainly staked its claim on air taxis with the Vahana’s latest test video.

The Airbus Altiscope vision for the future of urban air mobility

Why it’s important: With the release of the latest Vahana flight video featuring the aircraft in flight for 7 mins at speeds up to 57mph, Airbus marks its place among the recent flood of prototype videos released by major companies like Boeing and Bell Helicopter. The video features the Vahana transitioning from vertical to horizontal flight, which Boeing has named as, ‘typically the most significant engineering challenge for any high-speed VTOL aircraft’.

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Source // Airbus Vahana Blog, Boeing Technology Blog