FutureFlight

Car maker Stellantis is to produce Archer Aviation's four-passenger eVTOL aircraft under a new arrangement announced this week by the existing partners. Stellantis has also agreed to provide Archer with a further $150 million in equity capital in 2023 and 2024 in a move that significantly deepens a relationship with the California-based start-up that began in 2020.

Horizon Aircraft says it has successfully conducted the first hover flight tests of a half-scale Cavorite X5 eVTOL prototype. The Canadian start-up is developing a fixed-wing eVTOL aircraft with a highly efficient, hybrid-electric power system that can seat four passengers plus one pilot.

The FAA has approved Reliable Robotics to proceed to the next stage of work needed to secure a supplemental type certificate to convert Cessna Caravan aircraft to be operated remotely with an autopilot engaged for all phases of flight. The agency has cleared the company to advance to Stage 3 of the G-2 issue paper process covering how its navigation and autoflight system will meet the performance-based safety requirements.

On New Year’s Day, 1914, when the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line launched the world’s first scheduled, commercial airline service to connect the two Florida cities, few among even the most optimistic observers present would likely have envisaged a day when around 600 passengers could travel over 8,000 nm on a double-decked Airbus A380 jumbo liner.

ZeroAvia and Universal Hydrogen are developing hydrogen-electric powertrains to convert existing twin turboprop regional airliners such as the Dornier 228, the Dash 8, and the ATR72. Flight testing technology demonstrators will allow them to complete the designs and specifications for planned supplemental type certificates.

The final week of 2022 has seen two publicly-owned eVTOL developers bolstering their financial foundations in separate agreements valued potentially at more than $110 million. Transactions involving China’s EHang and Eve Air Mobility, in which Brazilian aerospace group Embraer is the majority shareholder, were both announced on December 23.

In Lake Nona, an upwardly mobile new neighborhood in sprawling greater Orlando, the new wave of public transportation is taking shape, bringing significant changes on the ground and in the air.

As part of its ongoing efforts to study the safety of new advanced air mobility technology, NASA recently smashed a mockup eVTOL aircraft cabin full of crash-test dummies into the ground to find out what might happen to the occupants in the event of an emergency landing. The agency released a video showing several views of the test article crashing into the ground in slow motion as its overhead structure collapses. 

Scientists with the National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR), together with eVTOL developer Beta Technologies, have performed the first-ever drop test of an aircraft battery to study the safety of the vehicle in the event of an emergency landing. 

Air, a start-up developing a personal eVTOL aircraft called Air One, has achieved its first transition flight, “perfectly” transitioning from hover to wing-borne cruise flight, the company announced on December 20.