FutureFlight

ZeroAvia says it is investigating the causes of the unplanned landing of its flying testbed, which may cause some disruption to its intention to evaluate its hydrogen propulsion system for use on larger aircraft. Last month, the company announced plans and new funding to power a 50-seat airliner with hydrogen.

Chinese eVTOL aircraft developer EHang continues to place a strong emphasis on conducting public flight demonstrations and establishing partnerships with communities both in China and Europe. It is unclear when Covid pandemic restrictions will allow plans for flight trials in Austria, Norway, and Spain to resume, but the company has been showing off the EH216 at recent trade fairs and sporting events.

Horizon Aircraft's leadership team will support Astro in developing a trio of eVTOL aircraft designs, including the Cavorite X5, the Elroy, and the Alta. However, Astro is allocating a first-year operating budget of only $1.5 million to support work on the hybrid-electric Cavorite, which is likely to need far higher levels of funding to achieve its projected type certification in 2025.

For years, Randy Tinseth marketed Boeing's airliners around the world. Now he and former EasyJet executive Tony Anderson are joining the leadership team of UK-based Faradair to help it bring the Bio Electric Hybrid Aircraft to market.

Stakeholders backing electric aviation and plans for new urban air mobility initiatives had the chance to make the case for more proactive U.S. political leadership in support of their efforts. Those giving evidence to the U.S. House of Representatives this week included MagniX CEO Roei Ganzarski and Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti, as well as Boom Supersonic CEO Blake Scholl.

News of Bye Aerospace's partnership with L3 Harris Technologies comes just a week after the U.S. electric aviation pioneer announced plans to bring its nine-seat eFlyer 800 to market between 2024 and 2026. The aircraft is already being considered by several air taxi, charter, and cargo operators, and may now be offered for military customers.

The European Rotors show is organized by the European Helicopter Association with support from EASA and is planned as an in-person event in Cologne, Germany, in November 2021. The Vertical Flight Society will be organizing a program of technical sessions during the three-day trade show.

The Vertex project run by Airbus UpNext is intended to develop and demonstrate enabling technologies that could greatly simplify mission preparation and management tasks to the point where the pilot simply confirms the destination before monitoring the flight while conducting other tasks. Airbus expects the autonomous technology to feature in its planned eVTOL aircraft but says that it could be another decade before urban air mobility flights might be conducted without a pilot on board.

During a recent virtual demonstration, Honeywell showed how distributed processing technology and advanced fly-by-wire algorithms are supporting plans for simplified vehicle operations with new eVTOL aircraft. The company also displayed its latest digitally active phased-array radar and hydrogen fuel cells for propulsion systems.

Jetoptera is exploring options to apply its patented Fluidic Propulsion Technology, which could help eVTOL and eSTOL aircraft developers overcome the limitations of current battery technology, while also harnessing what the company claims is an exceptionally low noise signature well suited to operations in urban environment. At the same time, it is working on plans for its own 4,000-pound full-scale prototype aircraft ready to start flight testing in 2024 or 2025.