Shortly after Pivotal officially launched sales of its single-seat personal aerial vehicle—a recreational eVTOL aircraft that requires no license to fly—the company’s “tilt-aircraft” architecture has garnered some attention from the U.S. Air Force.
Pivotal (formerly known as Opener Aero) announced on February 21 that it had delivered the first four of eight Blackfly aircraft—the pre-production version of its flagship Helix vehicle—to Modern Technology Solutions (MTSI), an engineering firm contracted by the U.S. Air Force’s Afwerx innovation unit to assess the tilt-aircraft’s performance for potential defense applications.
As a partner in the Afwerx Agility Prime program, Pivotal is providing pilot training and support services to MTSI and the USAF throughout the eight-month flight testing campaign, which will take place at New Braunfels National Airport in Texas as well as the National Advanced Air Mobility Center of Excellence (NAAMCE) at Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport in Ohio. In addition to leasing eight aircraft to MTSI, Pivotal is also leasing two of its flight simulators to support training at those locations. Those two simulators were delivered along with the first batch of Blackflys, according to Pivotal.
“Over the next eight months, we will fly eight BlackFly eVTOL aircraft in different environments to test their mission effectiveness and suitability in military uses,” said Vance Drenkhahn, executive v-p of MTSI’s defense services division. “Pivotal's amazing light eVTOL platform offers an opportunity to support Afwerx and solve real-world challenges.”
Small, light eVTOL aircraft such as the Blackfly “have potential for several missions including special operations, surveillance, and disaster and emergency response with local command and control at a much lower price point than traditional helicopters,” said Agility Prime program lead John Tekell. The Agility Prime program has worked with various other eVTOL developers in recent years, including air taxi manufacturers such as Archer and Joby as well as other personal aerial vehicles such as JetPack Aviation's Speeder.
“Afwerx's and MTSI's decision to partner with Pivotal is a strong endorsement of our platform's maturity and a milestone on our journey to mission relevance,” said Pivotal CEO Ken Karklin. "With over 12 years at the forefront of light eVTOL aircraft development, it is an honor to join forces with Afwerx and MTSI to demonstrate the utility and versatility of Pivotal's patented eVTOL architecture."
Recreational pilots (licensed or not) can order the Pivotal Helix aircraft online at a starting price of $190,000. Because the aircraft complies with the FAA’s Part 103 rules for ultralight aircraft, operators do not need a pilot’s license to legally fly it, but Pivotal is still requiring customers to complete a training course before they can receive their deliveries. Pivotal said it aims to begin shipping the Helix to customers on June 10. Meanwhile, about a dozen customers participating in the company’s early access program have already begun receiving deliveries of the pre-production Blackfly aircraft.
The Helix's design features eight fixed rotors built into two cantilevered tandem wings. With a fully battery-electric powertrain, it can fly at a cruise speed of 55 knots to a range of about 20 miles (32 kilometers) with 20 percent battery reserves left, and it can fully recharge in 75 minutes with a Level 2 EV charger.
