Category: Vehicles/Manufactures

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...

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Airbus Vahana

Daher, Airbus, and Safran announced a collaborative partnership at the Paris Air Show to design and develop EcoPulse, a wing-mounted distributed hybrid-propulsion demonstrator based on Daher’s TBM platform. The partnership will leverage each of the companies’ strengths to develop the hybrid-propulsion demonstrator, which is slated for a first test flight in 2022. Safran will use its technology as a world-class...

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Personal Airline Exchange (PAX) just placed an order for 50 Ampaire EEL Electric Aircraft. Personal Airline Exchange (PAX) is a newly surfaced company offering shared regional flight chartering. On the PAX platform, customers will be able to book flights on private aircraft and split the cost with other customers, paying a ‘per seat’ price, much like an Uber Pool. This...

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Ampaire

German air taxi company Volocopter just released its own white paper on the future of Urban Air Mobility. The latest white paper from Volocopter focuses on how to to overcome barriers to market for urban air mobility, covering issues like development, certification and service launch. Specific sections of the document discuss safety, noise emissions, range & speed, operating costs, capacity, and...

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Volocopter Urban Air Mobility

XTI Aircraft has announced additional sales from from North America and Australia for the XTI TriFan 600, brining the order total up to 80 aircraft. XTI Aircraft is a company making history by developing a luxury hybrid eVTOL for private flight. The company was founded in 2012, and to date has raised over $25 million from crowdfunding platform Startengine as...

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XTI Aircraft

Air taxi company Lilium has officially selected London to host its software engineering and development team. Lilium is a well-known aspiring air taxi company famous for developing the Lilium Jet. Although its headquarters are in Munich, Lilium recently announced its decision to build a software engineering base in London. Lilium believes this new software base will create hundreds of jobs in London...

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Lilium

Israeli startup NFT Inc. is developing its own autonomous electric flying car. Named the Asaka (or ASKA), which means ‘flying bird’ in Japanese, the flying car is equipped with 14 propellers for flight, as well as conventional wheels for ground travel. NFT will showcase the ASKA at the Ecomotion 2019 smart mobility show in Tel Aviv, and intends to begin...

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ASKA Flying Car

Uber Elevate Summit 2019: The Bullet Points

16 June 2019 || 4 min read

This week’s Uber Elevate conference in Washington D.C was a hallmark event for the entire Urban Aviation industry. With a plethora  of new announcements, Uber continues to lead the charge forward for Urban Air Mobility. Uber made several major announcements of new partnerships, designs, and technologies. Here’s what we’ve identified as the most important, all readable on TransportUP: Uber Releases...

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Uber’s New Air Taxi Cabin

16 June 2019 || 3 min read

Uber Elevate, earlier this week at its Summit in Washington D.C, unveiled the interior design for its future air taxis. Uber’s new cabin design was built in collaboration with Safran Cabin. Safran, a global leader in aviation design, has been working closely with the UAM industry. Most recently, Safran was has been involved with developing propulsion systems specifically for eVTOLs....

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EmbraerX and Pipistrel have both released images and specifications of their new eVTOL designs, both of which have competitive performance standards preparing to meet the needs for urban aviation. Embraer has over 50 years of experience in making private jets, and is now turning to eVTOLs as the fulfillment of its dream of regional flight. Its newly unveiled eVTOL is...

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Pipistrel

Elusive company Jaunt Air Mobility has been named as a new eVTOL partner for the future Uber Air network. The Jaunt Air Mobility eVTOL has a unique design in that it features only one large single lift rotor, making it a combination between a helicopter and and a small airplane. Jaunt Air Mobility calls this technology ‘ROSA’-an acronym for “Reduced...

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Honeywell has released a new compact fly-by-wire system, about the size of a small book, as their newest development for the UAM industry. Fundamentally, Honeywell’s fly-by-wire system performs the same job as any other one: it connects an aircraft’s manual flight controls to a intuitive electronic interface, interpreting and executing the commands inputted by the pilot. It also provides stability...

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Amazon Prime Air has just recieved FAA approval to begin testing its drones. On the same day as this announcement, it also unveiled a new design. The latest announcement from Amazon is two-fold: Firstly, the company confirmed that it has received approval from the FAA to begin research and testing for drone deliveries, and secondly, Amazon unveiled a new design for...

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Honeywell has signed an agreement with yet another urban air mobility company. This time, it’s with the UK’s Vertical Aerospace, which has an eVTOL currently in flight testing. The Vertical Aerospace eVTOL has one of the sleekest designs on the market, comparable to the Bell Nexus Air Taxi or the Lilium Jet. Based out of the United Kingdom, Vertical Aerospace...

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Honeywell and Vertical Aerospace

Leonardo Helicopters is building a civilian version of the V-22 Osprey. Unlike the military version, the AW609 has a pressurized cabin, allowing it to fly at heights up to 25,000 feet, and comes with a luxury interior. The Leonardo AW609 is the one of the world’s first private tilt-rotor aircraft, built for a number of possible applications from search and...

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Leonardo Helicopters AW609