Given its eye-catching appearance, the initial hover flight test of Zeva’s disc-shaped Zero eVTOL prototype on January 9 may well have prompted reports of UFO sightings, but the Washington-based start-up will be hoping the maiden liftoff attracts offers of funding. Founder and CEO Stephen Tibbits told FutureFlight that he and his team are urgently seeking to raise at least $50 million to keep the project moving as they aim to expand the flight test envelope to transition from vertical to horizontal cruise.
According to the Zeva team, the Zero’s blended-wing configuration overcomes what it views as weaknesses in rival eVTOL architectures, avoiding the need to tip the airframe into the wind to achieve forward flight and for lifting propellers to “fight against the down-force created by the relative wind.” By contrast, it says that lift is created in the wing-body when the aircraft initiates forward flight at around a 10-degree angle of attack, improving power efficiency and extending range.
The company envisages a variety of applications for the single-occupant, pilot-optional vehicle, including personal transportation, emergency response, search and rescue, law enforcement, and cargo deliveries. Its projected range is up to 50 miles at speeds of up to 160 mph, and the all-electric Zero only requires a 30-foot-by-30-foot patch of land from which to operate. One operating concept, dubbed SkyDock, presented on the company website shows a method for the vehicle to be boarded directly from the vertical sides of a tall building.
The company was launched back in 2017, starting with its participation in that year’s Boeing GoFly competition. Previously, Tibbits had submitted grant proposals to NASA in 2003 for eVTOL designs as part of his desire to expand the horizons of general aviation beyond the availability of airfields.
So far, crowdfunding efforts have raised just under $180,000 with the support of 255 investors at a share price of $4. Tibbits said that it won’t start taking pre-orders for the Zero until it is ready to unveil a production-conforming example of the aircraft. Provisionally, the company estimates that it might be able to get the product to market in 2028, very likely under a new brand name.
Subject to complex air traffic management requirements being resolved, the Zero would ideally operate autonomously. But the company’s first step is to seek an experimental license to fly with a pilot, or at least an operator, on board.
Zeva has already flown a one-sixth-scale version of the Zero in transitional flight, and the company will now seek to achieve the same with the full-scale prototype, a task that Tibbits described as, “the next major mountain to climb.” After the initial testing on a piece of land outside Tacoma that his family has owned since they reached the Pacific Northwest state with other early settlers, tethered testing will now continue in an enclosed building while the company seeks FAA sign-off for untethered experimental flying.
