DIGI Droxi
Quick Summary
The DIGI Droxi is being developed in Dubai, UAE by DIGI Drones, who are scaling their experience with smaller drone technologies to a passenger-carrying variant.
Kitty Hawk, a California-based corporation, operated by Zephyr Airworks in New Zealand.
Stage of Development
Preliminary Design
Prototype Build
Flight Testing
Certification
Commercially Operating
Technical Details
From the DIGI website:
“Air-Taxi Solution based on an innovative Autonomic Flying Concept powered by State of the Art Electric Engines and Ground breaking Light Aircraft development, fully utilizing the latest composite materials and technology. It will decongest the traffic at sensitive not points as well as brings a bunch of advantages for business and tourism. Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) combined the advantages of vertical hovering and horizontal flying and can land and take off on 60m runway with 6 people onboard and fly’s completely autonomous with monitory benefits like monitored & controlled by a central station HQ.”
- Air-Taxi, Scenic Tours, Island Hopper: Commuter for airports, hotels resorts, VIP events.
- Agriculture: Aerial Spray Application, crop control.
- Reconnaissance, Border/Traffic and Pipeline control: Up to 11 hours operating endurance. Slow speed for street control, border/coast control. Leak detection with low operating cost.
- Ambulance: As first response for outback aerials, 60m take-off and landing on water or rough ground, no paved strip needed.
- Firefighter: As water bomber <1.000 liter or by with 7-10,000 liter of foam
- Tanker/Cargo Aircraft: Supply up to 1,000 kg of cargo, water or fuel to non-infrastructure areas. 60m take-off and landing on water or rough ground, no paved strip needed.
Our Take on DIGI
DIGI has extensive experience in the unmanned vehicle field - but not much in aerospace. The biggest hurdle for DIGI to overcome in order to bring their Droxi Air Taxi to market is the aerospace expertise required to design a smart solution to the eVTOL problem; DIGI has the resources and infrastructure in place for manufacturing advanced vehicles; this process must be shifted toward the flight realm. Stay tuned for more updates - since this company is in Dubai, one of three proposed UberAIR pilot cities, the Air Taxi industry will be quite active there.
References
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