On October 22nd, urban air taxi developer Volocopter successfully completed its first urban manned flight over Singapore’s Marina Bay. 

Not only was the latest demonstration flight the first manned test for Volocopter, it was the second ever test held in an urban flight setting following an autonomous urban flight test in Stuttgart, Germany. Volocopter has been planning this Singapore demonstration since October of 2018, and the flight occurred right on schedule, marking a major success.

This flight represents a massive achievement for Volocopter, pushing its agenda ever closer to commercialized flight. The Volocopter team has been working extremely hard in the last year to push its urban mobility solutions. In just this year, it has published its own whitepaper study on urban air mobility, released its newest vehicle concept ‘VoloCity’, and worked with the ADAC foundation to complete a staged rescue mission.

The Volocopter 2X soars over Singapore’s Marina Bay.

The Singapore flight test was the last in Volocopter’s test series to validate and verify the ability of the 2X to fly over this area. The company, along with Singapore’s Ministry of Transport (MOT), hopes to bring commercial air taxi flights to Singapore in the quickly nearing future. The latest test flight covered a distance of approximately 1.5 km and lasted for two minutes at an average cruising height of 40m.

“The flight today in Singapore was the most advanced Volocopter flight yet and the piloted flight was as stable as ever. At the same time, we are showcasing a prototype of our full-scale VoloPort Infrastructure, allowing for a realistic demonstration of air taxi boarding and maintenance services. Never before have people been this close to experiencing what Urban Air Mobility in the city of tomorrow will feel like.”                           -Florian Reuter, CEO of Volocopter.