Category: Vehicles/Manufactures

German air taxi company Lilium has added to its team former head of communications at Rolls-Royce Aerospace Oliver Walker-Jones. The team now includes former high-ranking executives from Airbus and Audi, as well as Frank Stephenson, who worked in design at Ferrari, BMW, and MINI. At Rolls-Royce Aerospace, Walker-Jones’ role included acting on the outward-facing aspect of the company as well...

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Lilium hires former head of communication at Rolls-Royce Aerospace

A landing pad for the VRCO NeoXcraft is being built in the garden of a $12.5 million home in the UK. VRCO has released a set of images showing the planned landing area, which comes with a renewable energy recharging system for the two-seater aircraft. VRCO is based in Derby, UK, and has been developing the NEOXCraft since its founding in...

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VRCO Landing Pad

San Luis Obispo, CA – based Empirical Systems Aerospace (ESAero for short) is partnering with NASA to create an all-electric X-57 “Maxwell” technology demonstrator aircraft. The Central Coast engineering firm specializes in “on-demand engineering” and ultimately plans to retrofit a Tecnam P2006T general aviation aircraft to demonstrate their technological advances in electric propulsion. The Tecnam P2006T is a popular light...

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ESAero X-57

Electrafly, a self-funded aviation startup based in Utah, has announced plans to partner with Utah’s very own dedicated unmanned aircraft system test sight operator Deseret. Set to begin in 2019, flights over the FAA-sanctioned test area will work all the way up to forward flight of a single passenger. The aircraft, dubbed the Electraflyer, is a hybrid electric multi-copter, meaning...

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Electrafly Deseret vtol hybrid electric

Bell Recruits Moog for Air Taxi Flight Actuation

16 December 2018 || 3 min read

Bell has added yet another partner to the growing list that will be developing its Air Taxi. Moog’s role will be to design the Flight Control Actuation System. As a reminder, Bell has yet to unveil the full version of its Air Taxi. For now, it has shown mockups of the planned interior of the aircraft, which was featured with...

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Bell Partners with Moog for Air Taxi Flight Control Actuation systems

Alphabet, the holding company in charge of Google Inc. and other similar initiatives announced a status update for their Wing project last week. On Wing’s website, plans were unveiled to perform trial runs for  the drone-based package delivery service in Finland beginning in 2019. This project will be a follow-on to a trial that has been on-going in south-eastern Australia...

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Wing Alphabet Finland drone package delivery

Lift Aircraft, based in Austin, TX, has unveiled a flying production-design of its Hexa aircraft concept. The electric vertical take off and landing eVTOL flying machine, shown below, features impressive simplicity and redundancy that will enable personal use by tourists and amateur enthusiasts. Designed for 8-15 minute flights in scenic and uncongested areas, the aircraft relies on 18 propellers to get...

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Lift Aircraft Hexa personal flying machine prototype eVTOL urban air mobility

VerdeGo Aero, a company specializing in the manufacturing of powertrains for hybrid-electric flying cars, has announced its strategic partnership with Seyer Industries, a long-time expert in Aerospace manufacturing. VerdeGo Aero recently made a pivot from building its own flying car to providing fully fleshed out IDEP (integrated distributed electric propulsion) systems for eVTOL air taxis and similar aircraft. Founded by...

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Seyer partners with Verdego Aero

JETCopter Completes Turbine Testing

07 December 2018 || 3 min read

JETCopter has announced successful testing of its jet-powered VTOL propulsion system, confirming feasibility for the future aircraft. The future aircraft has a predicted range of 620 miles and top speed of 180mph. Specific details released about the turbines include that they are each 6.6ft in diameter, and create thrust comparable to 36ft helicopter rotors. On November 19th, the company sent out...

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Jetcopter turbine system

Assen Aero Flight Tests A1 Hoverbike

06 December 2018 || 2 min read

Assen Aero successfully flight tested a prototype of their A1 Hoverbike. A video posted to Youtube earlier this week shows the bike flown remotely at low altitudes. This is the one of the first steps towards full scale technology demonstration, which may include Hoverbike races as early as next year. Assen Aero, based in South Florida, has been working on...

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Assen Aero A1 hoverbike Airventure 2018

Los Angeles based urban air taxi carrier Quantum XYZ has placed a pre-order for Workhorse SureFly hybrid-electric octocopters. Quantum XYZ plans to use the aircraft to be the first urban air VTOL service to market. Zeeshan Moha, Vice President and Chief Route Architect of Quantum XYZ told prnewswire.com, “We invite a future where safe, on-demand air travel is as ubiquitous as car...

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Surefly eVTOL air taxi octocopter hybrid electric

EHang Partners with FACC for Production

04 December 2018 || 2 min read

EHang has signed with Austrian composites manufacturer FACC to optimize the EHang 184 for production, marking the next step in the 184’s journey to commercial use.  The EHang 184 is a two-passenger, quad-rotor eVTOL capable of flying about 35 miles between each charge. The 184 has completed over 1,000 passenger flight tests in places like Dubai, China and other...

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EHang Partners with FACC for manufacturing

German rescue service ADAC Luftrettung is partnering with Volocopter in a study that will test the feasibility of electric vertical takeoff (eVTOL) aircraft for medical rescue missions. The study, planned for Spring 2019, will cost approximately $570,000 and will use the manned version of the Volocopter shown below. By supporting this study, ADAC Luftrettung is the first ever air rescue organization to test...

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Volocopter for ADAC study

VTOL Aviation India May Compete with Uber Elevate

29 November 2018 || 4 min read

A new startup has emerged in Mumbai, India. VTOL Aviation India seeks to develop a safe, effective, and efficient air taxi for India, even as Uber Elevate eyes the area for initial test flights. According to VTOL Aviation India’s website, its goal is to “define a transition aircraft concept with better performance in safety, noise, speed, range and payload than...

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At the Drone Week conference in Amsterdam, Audi and Airbus jointly showed off a one-fourth scale working model of the Pop.Up concept, which Airbus debuted in May of 2017. The Pop.Up is a three-part modular vehicle consisting of a passenger pod, a four-wheeled ground adaptation designed by Audi, and a a quad-copter attachment for urban flight. The Pop.Up model featured...

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Pop.Up concept model by airbus and Audi