FutureFlight

For FutureFlight editor Hanneke Weitering, witnessing the long-awaited first flight of Eviation's Alice electric aircraft meant a trip from her Seattle area base to Moses Lake in Washington state and a pre-dawn start. The flight itself only last eight minutes but the visit yielded significant new information about the program as she shared in a video discussion. 

Aviation services group Ruag is supporting fellow Swiss company Dufour Aerospace in the development of the Aero2 uncrewed air vehicle (UAV).

I’m in the cockpit of a modified Cessna 208B Grand Caravan, descending from an altitude of about 4,000 feet down to California’s Yolo County Airport, just west of Sacramento. Seated to my left, the pilot is glancing over his landing checklist but keeps his hands off the controls. The yoke turns and presses forward as we prepare for the landing, all while the pilot’s hands are resting in his lap—almost as if a ghost has taken control of the aircraft. 

The "Living Lab" passenger terminal that Skyports has set up at Joby Aviation's eVTOL test facility in Marina, California, is the ground infrastructure group's latest initiative to evaluate how best to support commercial air taxi services that could start in 2024. The UK-based company is building other prototype vertiports in London and Paris.

Italy's first vertiport at Rome's Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci International Airport could be part of a network of eVTOL operating bases that Aeroporti di Roma intends to develop with partners including airports in Venice and Bologna as well as in Nice in France. Volocopter provided its 2X eVTOL technology demonstrator aircraft for a demonstration this week and has also deployed its VoloIQ digital platform.

Hydrogen-electric propulsion system developer ZeroAvia now has direct control of HyPoint's turbo-air-cooled, high-temperature proton membrane exchange fuel-cell stacks. The acquisition of HyPoint follows a recent partnership agreement with PowerCell, which is providing low-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cell stacks for ZeroAvia's plans to convert existing aircraft to hydrogen power in 2025.

Aura Aero says letters of intent for over 330 sales now back its hybrid-electric Electric Regional Aircraft, for which first deliveries are planned for 2027. In standard airline service, the 19-seater is expected to have a range of 1,000 nm (reducing to 215 nm for all-electric operations) and be able to take off and land with a 600-meter runway.

AutoFlight has appointed a new U.S.-based leadership team to oversee its plans to start deliveries of the four-seat Prosperity I eVTOL aircraft for commercial service in 2026. The Chinese company this week named Eviation Aircraft’s founder and former CEO, Omer Bar-Yohay, as its president. It also named Joby Aviation’s former head of business development, Chad Cashin, as its chief commercial officer.

Kite Magnetics has boosted its plans for an electric motor with a A$1.85 million ($1.2 million) seed funding round. The Australian start-up says the motor will be smaller, lighter, and more efficient than ones based on current technology and will employ a new magnetic material called Aeroperm developed at Monash University by its co-founders, Richard Parsons and Kiyonori Suzuki.

At least to start, most of the new eVTOL aircraft used for new air taxi and freight delivery services will have pilots on-board. That means the so-called advanced air mobility sector will face a significant challenge in recruiting and training unprecedented numbers of flight crew, and at a time when the existing air transport industry is already struggling with a skills shortage.