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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 existing concepts, while cutting complexity to one third and reducing the emissions to absolutely negligible fractions.”

It’s possible that because the company is beginning its air taxi efforts now, it will be ready for India market before Uber Elevate arrives. VTOL Aviation India was founded by Mr. Kalyan Chowdhury, who originally held expertise in the shipping and logistics industry in India. The company envisions that its aircraft will be used for civil defense, paramedic & emergency services, surveillance, aviation training, and Tourism & Business Chartering.

The ‘transition aircraft’ as the company calls it, is being developed in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. It features eight vertical rotors which lift it vertically, and a ninth rear-facing that provides thrust for horizontal flight. Unlike other VTOL designs, the aircraft does not feature a tilting wing, which reduces the amount of complex moving parts on the aircraft and may therefore bring down manufacturing cost. This design is similar to the KittyHawk Cora which is backed by Google co-founder Larry Page.

VTOL Aviation India yet has yet to make any comments about its position as opposed to Uber Elevate, but its existence may pressure Uber into choosing India as its first international launch city in order to capture the market before companies like VTOL Aviation India do so. Learn more about the company’s goals and vision here. 

Uber Elevate has already selected Dallas, Texas, and Los Angeles California in the United States as it’s initial test locations, but is still deciding on third launch location as either Australia, Brazil, India, France, or Japan. Japan has already founded an initiative to integrate flying cars into the market, and officials in Australia have recently met with Uber Elevate execs as well.

Potential UberAir India route

An Uber Elevate concept plane

Why its important: Competition is rising for the emerging on-demand VTOL industry around the world. As the impending success of the industry becomes more and more apparent, it’s very likely that smaller companies like VTOL Aviation India will begin popping up all over the world; as their geographical location would give them a leg up on bigger companies like Uber in their respective areas.

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 at Drone Week was built in collaboration with Italdesign, a world-renowned subsidiary of Audi. In addition to the smaller working model, the companies also exhibited full size mockups of the Pop.Up. Attendees got the chance to experience what it would be like to use the the vehicle.

Pop.Up full size mockup

In the test flight, the small scale prototype picked up the passenger pod from the ground vehicle, carried it a significant distance, and the deposited it back onto the ground vehicle to continue its journey. While the model itself was fairly small, the technology exhibited was impressive and sleek to say the least.

While regulations may be lagging behind, the emergence of the Pop.Up prototype at Drone Week shows that the technology required for aircraft like this is well on its way to ready for market.

And the Pop.Up isn’t Airbus’s only urban aviation aircraft. Also in development is the Airbus Vahana. Vahana is a project worked on by the A^3 technological development arm of Airbus, and is located in Santa Clara, CA. The aircraft uses variable-angle rotors that provide thrust vertically for takeoff and landing and swivel forward to facilitate accelerated conventional flight.

Airbus A^3’s ‘Vahana’ tilting fixed wing urban VTOL.

Why it’s important: With more and more important urban air mobility announcements coming out daily, the world is starting to notice. The Pop.Up prototype video was featured by both Bloomberg and Forbes, and multiple major news networks like CNN have also recently covered stories like the Hoversurf police training in Dubai. Without a doubt, the public is becoming more and more aware of the upcoming urban air mobility revolution, pushing progress further forward.

After selling his IoT software company to General Electric in 2017, Israeli entrepreneur Guy Kaplinsky has has founded flying car startup ‘New Future Transportation’.

Concept teaser image of the upcoming NFT aircraft

“The need for change is obvious, due to the increasing congestion in large cities and the ever-increasing traffic problems.” Says Kaplinsky, who plans to develop a flying car that can effectively take to the road as well as the skies. Kalipsky believes the vehicle will be about the size of an average SUV, and will even be competitively priced to one. His vision is for a vehicle that comes in both electric and hybrid models, and has at least semi-autonomous capabilities for both the ground and the air.

Unlike many competitors, Kaplinsky plans to aim more at the automotive sector than at the aerospace center. “We are working on a different product, which is indeed a flying car, but one that would be able to move on the ground, fly in the air and find a standard parking space at the end of the journey.” New Future Transport already has $2 million in funding put in by Kaplinsky himself, and is currently looking for another $15 million to take its prototype to the skies in mid to late 2015.

Also from Israel comes the Cormorant, developed by Israeli firm Urban Aeronautics. CEO Rafi Yoeli imagines that this vehicle, which completed unmanned test flights in November of 2016, will be used to autonomously clear areas of chemicals in emergency situations or to evacuate injured soldiers in the battlefield. Urban Aeronautics has been working on the concept, previously called the ‘Air Mule’, since 2001. Each unit will cost around $20 million, have a carrying capacity of about 500kg, and be able to fly at speeds of up to 185kph.

Why it’s important: As flying car development begins to become more prevalent around the world, the solutions and technologies available will become more and more wide-ranging. This means that competition is beginning to grow, and as a result the industry is becoming more widespread and advanced. Companies like Urban Aeronautics and NFT contribute to an ever-diversifying range of applications for eVTOL technology.

What a flying car powered by ionic wind may one day look like.

Scientists at MIT hit a major breakthrough earlier this week when they competed test flights of a model airplane powered completely by ionic wind. This means the aircraft had no moving parts, was completely silent, and produced absolutely no carbon emissions. It was also fully electric.

A time-lapse of the ionic wind plane in flight taken by MIT

This advancement represents a major step for the science of aviation. The MIT test plane is one of the first ever ‘solid-state’ aircraft, meaning it has no mechanical moving parts. According to associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT Steven Barrett, this technology has “potentially opened new and unexplored possibilities for aircraft which are quieter, mechanically simpler, and do not emit combustion emissions.”

How ionic wind might be used for a personal eVTOL.

For the world of Urban Aviation, this could one day mean that we see urban eVTOLs powered not by rotors, but by charged ionic wind. Ionic wind as a propulsion system would work extremely effectively for urban operations, since the solution is emission-free, completely silent, and invulnerable to potential mechanical interference.

Ionic wind is created by electric current. In the model aircraft by MIT, 20,000 volts of electricity are run through two wires on the underside of the the plane’s wings. The front wire is charged to positive, while the back wire is charged to negative. The front wire removes electrons from nitrogen in the air around the plane, making them negatively charged and causing them to accelerate quickly towards the back wire. The acceleration of this ‘wind’ gives the airplane thrust, which in turn generates lift for its wings.

Why it’s important: While the commercialization of ionic wind technology made be further down the road, it’s important to keep track of the feasibility development of these technologies as they may one day set the trend for flying vehicles.

In early September, Jetcopter showed the world its concept for a jet-powered VTOL. Now, it has re-iterated the design with a larger version that can fit up to seven passengers.

In September, we noted Jetcopter’s unique design concept–it’s one of the only VTOLs that will be powered by jets rather than propellers.

The Jetcopter’s vertical lift is provided by jet fans on its roof which push air through four end point nozzles.

Earlier this week, Jetcopter released concept images of its updated design, along with an announcement that it will bring a full scale mockup of the Jetcopter VTOL to the AERO 2019 aviation exhibition EuroFriedrichshafen, Germany, in April 2019.

The new design has a larger body than than the original, which could only carry six people and was designed for passengers rather than cargo. With the new concept, Jetcopter plans to produce a cargo version of the aircraft before releasing the passenger version.

The former version of the Jetcopter

Jetcopter’s new larger design includes a ramp to make the loading and unloading of cargo easier.

Jetcopter also announced that it has successfully tested its jet propulsion system, confirming feasibility for the Jetcopter itself.

The Jetcopter’s design is also unique in that it will be powered by two traditional automotive engines  These two engines will provide power for the jet fans on the vehicle’s roof, which will push air through the vectored nozzles that provide lift for and control the aircraft.

The Jetcopter will also have a ground mode that will allow it to move around on the road

The Jetcopter has a carbon fiber based fuselage, a planned range of 620 miles, and a top speed of 180mph. It’s two engines each have 400hp available. The price will be around $350,000. Learn more about the Jetcopter.

Why it’s important: It’s important to note that Jetcopter has chosen to release a cargo version of its aircraft before releasing the passenger version. In a recent speech, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenberg predicted that initial urban air mobility operations will begin with cargo flights in the next five years. By choosing to release a cargo version of its aircraft first, Jetcopter has increased the likelihood of beginning operations soon, and has a given itself a chance to be a the forefront of inspiring public confidence in VTOLs.