Featured
What Living with Flying Cars Will Be Like
We get so immersed in the mechanics and infrastructure surrounding the development of eVTOLs that we sometimes forget about what a world with flying cars will be like or what it will take to have the population at large accept these soon-to-be modern miracles. We know that eVTOLs are in our future – sooner than…
Startup Transcend Air Aims to Create Northeast Air Taxi
If you’ve got approximately US$20MM to spare, you might consider lending a startup hand to Transcend Air. Founders Gregory Bruell, formerly head of Elytron, a Silicon Valley VTOL design firm, and Peter Schmidt, a tech advisor for air-taxi provider Linear Air, have an eVTOL they’d like you to fund. Conceived as part traditional eVTOL and…
EASA Flips the On Switch for Electric Aircraft
Patrick Ky, executive director of The European Union Aviation and Space Agency (EASA), announced on June 10, 2020 that EASA had given two thumbs up to the world’s first fully electric aircraft. The Pipistrel Velis Electro is a two-seat aircraft intended primarily for pilot training, according to Slovenia-based Pipistrel. The aircraft was certified in less…
Drones Deliver in COVID-19 Healthcare Trial
The UK’s Argyll and Bute Health and Social Care Partnership National Health System (NHS Highland and Argyll and Bute Health and Social Care Partnership) are implementing a two-week drone delivery trial to speed urgent medical cargo, such as COVID-19 test kits and personal protective equipment (PPE), to remote parts of the Scottish Highlands. Using the…
EASA Publishes VTOL Additional Certification Methods
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) enhanced the flight path toward urban air mobility (UAM) by publishing its proposal for the certification of electric or hybrid air taxis (VTOLs) on May 25, 2020. The Cologne, Germany-based agency first outlined a certification framework VTOL manufacturers could use to begin developing air taxis (Special Condition VTOL)…
Vertical Aerospace Hires Tim Williams as Chief Engineer
Tim Williams was at year 33 with Rolls-Royce—the last 10 as a Chief Engineer—when he was contacted by a recruiter. Calling the world’s second-largest maker of aircraft engines “a superb company to work for,” he thought he’d dispatch the recruiter by saying the only thing that could tempt him was “a much bigger challenge.” And…