FutureFlight

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. 

Europe’s CORUS-XUAM project to establish how so-called U-Space infrastructure for uncrewed aircraft could be used to support advanced air mobility (AAM) flight operations is set to draw to an end in early 2023. But there is still plenty of work to be done to lay a firm air traffic management (ATM) foundation for the new eVTOL aircraft and drones that are set to operate alongside existing traffic in and around busy cities.

Spanish airlines Air Nostrum and Volotea have acquired a minority stake in Dante Aeronautical, which is working to market electric propulsion conversions of existing turboprop aircraft such as the Cessna Caravan, the DHC Twin Otter, the Beechcraft King Air, and the Casa C212.