FutureFlight

Military personnel from an undisclosed Southeast Asian country will come to California to be trained on how to operate JetPack's JB12 units for a variety of defense missions with no previous flying experience. The product is providing income to support JetPack Aviation's efforts to develop the Speeder VTOL vehicle, for which flight testing is set to be expanded throughout 2022.

As it continues work to bring its seven-seat Lilium Jet eVTOL aircraft to market by the end of 2024, the German company is starting a round of flight tests in Spain with the smaller fifth-generation technology demonstrator. The program team has been boosted by the appointment of former RAF and Leonardo Helicopters test pilot Andrew Strachan to lead the flight-test program, which will see sorties at higher speeds and over longer distances.

The UK's Aerospace Technology Institute included an outline plan for a 75-seat hydrogen-powered regional airliner as part of a new report on its FlyZero project to decarbonize air transport. However, while making the case for more investment in supporting technologies, it made no mention of anticipated government funding.

Flapper, the Brazil-based charter flight booking platform, has made provisional agreements with electric-aircraft developers Jaunt, Eve, and Electra. Under a letter of intent signed this week with Jaunt Air Mobility, it could add 25 of its five-seat Journey eVTOL vehicles to a network that already includes more than 900 aircraft flown by its local operating partners.

Mesa Airlines is among three announced launch customers for Elroy Air's Chaparral hybrid-electric VTOL aircraft, which will be able to carry cargo loads of up to 500 pounds on 300-mile sectors. The manufacturer unveiled a preproduction version of the lift-and-cruise design this week and is preparing to start flight testing with the U.S. Air Force in 2022.

In the first year of a planned three-year program, Leonardo's new Business Innovation Factory is looking to accelerate 10 start-ups developing technology and products in "servitization" and autonomous systems. The most promising ventures will be given the opportunity to develop proof-of-concept plans in direct partnership with an appropriate subsidiary of the Italian aerospace, defense, and security group.

Electric aircraft manufacturer Bye Aerospace reports that the backlog for its eFlyer 800 twin-motor airplane has grown to include 135 purchase deposits and option agreements. The company is targetting 2027 for type certification and service entry, with a prototype expected to start flight tests in 2024.

Announcing a $495 million funding agreement with Boeing, Wisk Aero declined to provide any details about the sixth-generation eVTOL aircraft it is developing or say when it aims to complete type certification. The U.S. company intends to operate a large fleet of the all-electric, fully autonomous vehicles in air taxi services that it says it will launch in 20 cities, with as many as 14 million flights conducted by 2,000 aircraft in the first year of service.

Following breakthroughs in trials involving beyond-visual-line-of-sight drone operations, autonomous flight technology group Neuron and blockchain specialist Hedera say they have a plan for digitizing all categories of airspace. The partners claim this approach could help to deliver a long-overdue modernization of air traffic management and would be especially valuable in enabling a rapid scale-up in eVTOL aircraft commercial services.

The stand-out design feature of Overair's planned Butterfly eVTOL aircraft is its patented Optimum Speed Propulsion system, based on four large tiliting propellers that spin more slowly than other designs to reduce noise and consume less energy than those used by comparable vehicles. The company has now started ground testing the propulsion system and is in the early stages of building a full-scale prototype of the five-seater model that could fly in 2023.