GoAero Prize Highlights Rescue Missions

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The GoAero Prize has a simple-sounding, but incredibly complex goal: Design and build a safe, portable, robust, autonomy-enabled Emergency Response Flyer. The Vision The Prize’s vision defines the heroes who look past danger, who step in to be, “The difference between triumph… and tragedy, and especially, those who “Use Their Minds to Create technology that Saves Lives.”  There’s $2 million waiting for those who come up with the best solutions.  And the competition promises even greater glory, “This is your chance to make history… and save lives.” GoAero says, “The world needs this,” explaining that, “In the U.S. alone, nearly 4.5 million people live in “ambulance deserts,” in a medical crisis, people in these areas have to wait as long as 25 minutes or more for an emergency medical crew to arrive.” We’ve seen recent examples of how serious such waits can be.  Paradise, California was a thriving community of over 26,000 before the disastrous Camp Creek fire in 2018. …

Wisk Wows at Oshkosh

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A Wisk Cora flew autonomously several times along the length of the 8,002-foot main runway, a first at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s 2023 AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.  The July 25 event was, “The first-ever public demonstration of a fully autonomous eVTOL fixed-wing airtaxi,” according to the company. Under development and appearing in different configurations over the last several years Wisk’s aircraft have flown in Hollister, California and in New Zealand.  Cora represents the fifth generation of such vehicles.  Wisk, a Boeing partner, is not stopping there. The flight from another perspective, with an explanation of the noise on the soundtrack: “The noise is the 787 APU, not the @WiskAero. ‘  Note how the noise drops as the auxiliary power unit shuts down, with crowd noise competing with the Cora for dominance. https://twitter.com/i/status/1684023361804943360    A Future with Four Seats The latest iteration for the firm is their sixth-generation craft, simply called Generation Six.  It’s a four-seater, with ample room for passengers and …

eHang Near Chinese Certification

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Last September, eHang announced their EH216 is close to certification by the Civil Aviation Authority of China (CAAC) and revealed some astounding numbers. The EH216 (two seats, 16 rotors) has over 30,000 safe flights to its credit.  An even stronger sign that eHang is headed toward commercial operations – its safety video.  You don’t need to be conversant in Mandarin or Cantonese to get it.  Preparing for customer operations is a clear sign of intent. According to eHang, a “Project Specific Certification Plan has been officially approved by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (“CAAC”).  At present, various specified review subjects have been confirmed, including performance and flight, structural strength, design and configuration, ground control station, airborne human-computer interaction, totality, continued airworthiness, etc., and activities for demonstration and verification of compliance are being prepared.”  Final tests and validation will follow, with certification expected by this fall. They are preparing passengers for a professional, slick experience, and setting expectations at a …

Sky Taxis, Eviation Featured on TV News

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60 Minutes and The Today Show have recently featured sky taxis and future electric airliners on their broadcasts.  This is big news in that such transport is getting recognition in popular media, and even somewhat of a fair hearing.  Even though references to the Jetsons are common in such reports, both these excursions seemed to be less wide-eyed, biased, and skeptical than most. Lift Hexa Although LIFT’s Hexa is featured prominently in publicity for the show, Wisk’s CEO is featured in this promotional piece.  “We’re excited to share that we’ll be on this weekend’s episode of @60Minutes on @cbstv! Be sure to tune in as our CEO, Gary Gysin, sits down with @AndersonCooper to talk about the future of #mobility!” LIFT had a say in promoting the show.  “Sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic during rush hour is one of the worst things about the morning commute. But what if people could fly over the gridlock? Anderson Cooper takes a ride in …

Doubling Down with Ascendance

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Ascendance Flight Technologies, a French firm developing an electric Vertical Take Off and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft, has doubled down on its original, smaller airplane.  Originally a four-seat, hybrid-powered machine with three lift fans, Atea has retained the name, but grown considerably. Holey Wings Atea now has eight lift fans and two horizontal propellers arranged in a push-pull configuration.  It can carry its five passenger in a “Skyview cabin” for 400 kilometers (248 miles)  Powered by its modular “Sterna” hybrid-electric propulsion system, the craft will hit as yet unspecified speeds, but within a two-hour range, that will probably be about 124 mph. An expansion of their original design, Atea comes from a group of former Airbus e-Fan engineers and technicians.  The web site explains, “Ascendance was cofounded in 2018 by Jean-Christophe Lambert, Benoit Ferran, Clément Dinel and Thibault Baldivia, who together have 26 years combined experience and expertise working on hybrid and electrical aircrafts: from Airbus on the E-FAN all-electric aircraft …

Following the Sky Taxi Money: eVTOLs

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As though by magic, money from Wall Street, venture capitalists and other investors show a growing interest and cash flow in sky taxis.  It started on August 11 with JoeBen Bevirt of JOBY ringing the bell that starts trading on the stock market floor. As one web site points out, it’s up to the discretion of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) as to who gets to ring the bell and, “Only those companies with stocks or exchange-traded funds (ETFs) listed on the exchange can ring the bell.” We’ll look at a sampling of companies making electric Vertical Take Off and Landing (eVTOL) vehicles and selling in domestic and foreign markets for an overview of what’s hot.  Later, we’ll look at the inroads being made by makers of fixed-wing aerial vehicles in the nascent regional market. Archer “The closing of the business combination (with Atlas Crest Investment Corp.) generated $857.6 million of gross proceeds, which will help fund Archer’s vision …

Wright Electric, ARPA-E, and Life’s Report Card

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If, as the infamous cartoon in the New Yorker proclaimed, “Money is life’s report card,” Jeff Engler’s Wright Electric got a least a B+ for its current semester.  While not as flush with cash as firms like Joby Aviation, eHang, or Volocopter, Wright received significant recognition for its initiative in designing high-efficiency electric motors with a high-frequency inverter and “an aggressive cooling strategy.”  The $647,039 ARPA-E grant will further Wright’s work on the ARPA-E ASCEND Project. ASCEND stands for Aviation-class Synergistically Cooled Electric-motors with iNtegrated Drives, a sure-fire Scrabble winner and pretty tortuous acronym. Phase one of the project takes the team through the detailed design and subcomponent testing for the system.  Phase two will see Wright build and demonstrate the system. Only a startup in 2017, Wright Electric has managed to partner with easyJet, a European budget airline, to develop a 186-seat electric aircraft called Wright 1.  With others in startup mode flying six and ten-passenger aircraft and looking …

eHang Flies for Real at Kitty Hawk

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eHang has been busy over the past year, with demonstration flights worldwide, and last week in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina – the birthplace of aviation. Not a Long Commute In March, 2019, EHang founder, Mr. Hu Huazhi commuted via EHang AAV (Autonomous Aerial Vehicle) in Guangzhou, China.  As you can clearly see, it’s not a long commute, but a demonstration  of the faith the founder and others have in the machine.  As reported here two years ago, the company flew its entire executive group and and Guangshou city officials in their two-seat machines.  eHang reports on their extensive testing and demonstration flights: “To date, EHang has safely conducted over two thousand trial flights in the United States, China, Austria, the Netherlands, Qatar, and the UAE to ensure that its AAVs operate safely and reliably in different areas globally.” eHang, already prosperous from model drone sales, has invested heavily in a corporate infrastructure and international marketing.  They note a Blue Paper …

Volocopter’s Short Flight Over the Bay

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Volocopter air taxi flies over Singapore’s Marina Bay Volocopter flew the latest version of its two-seat sky taxi, the 2X, on a two-minute, 1.5-kilometer excursion around and over Singapore’s Marina Bay on October 22.  This short flight, surrounded by massive, futuristic skyscrapers, highlighted the controllability of the small machine and its ability to use minimal infrastructure, taking off from and landing on a simple grass plot. Florian Reuter, CEO of Volocopter, applauded the flight’s verification of his vision.  “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.” Perfect for commuting on the island, Volocopters would enable transit across the 50-kilometer (31-mile) …

Zee?  Kitty Hawk? Cora?

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Different Names, Different Configurations Zee, One of two aircraft companies funded by Google founder and CEO Larry Page, has been a highly mysterious business.  Its web pages mostly gave discrete job descriptions for those willing to sign up for a mostly undefined mission.  Occasional glimpses of patent drawings, spy shots of a multi-rotor craft in Google’s Mountain View, California parking lot came into view, and later, in-flight shots of other, different looking craft came from Hollister, California. Kitty Hawk, the other company funded by Larry Page, seems to have subsumed Zee and produced a 12-rotor, single-propeller aerial taxi about the size of a Cessna 150, but capable of vertical takeoffs and landings and seamless transitions to forward flight.  A white example has flown at Hollister airport and a yellow version at a field in New Zealand. An Almost Epic Journey The intellectual, physical and geographical journey of this craft is almost epic, and seems to have resulted in a 13-motored …