FutureFlight

British Airways is among a group of investors supporting a new $24.3 million funding round for hydrogen propulsion pioneer ZeroAvia, which has now raised almost $74 million. The airline has not indicated whether it intends to operate the 50- and 100-seat airliners that ZeroAvia will fit with hydrogen-electric powertrains but says the investment is part of its aim of supporting net-zero carbon emissions on short-haul services by 2050.

Following flight trials with two eVTOL aircraft demonstrators, the CityAirbus and the Vahana, it has been unclear what Airbus's next steps in this field might be. Company CEO Guillaume Faury says the group will keep working on this technology, even though it now feels it may take until later in the 2020s to establish commercial air taxi services.

The next phase of Cora flight testing in New Zealand will extend Wisk's work with the government to prepare for autonomous air taxi operations but will not involve passengers at this stage. Wisk has also enlisted the support of fellow Boeing group company Insitu Pacific, which is a specialist in unmanned aerial systems.

In 2022, Lilium will build the first production-conforming prototype of its seven-seat Lilium Jet for which it is seeking concurrent type certification by EASA and the FAA. The all-electric aircraft will be used for what the company calls "regional shuttle services" on flights of up to around 155 miles in markets such as Florida.

The International Business Aviation Council's advanced air mobility working group is expanding its established International Standard for Business Aircraft Operations audit and certification process to cover new unmanned and manned aircraft. The initiative is progressing as the International Civil Aviation Organization prepares to amend the Chicago Convention to include these nascent aviation sectors.

The Textron group, which includes both the Cessna general aviation manufacturer and helicopter maker Bell, has so far been quiet about its ambitions in the electric aviation market. Its plans already include the Bell Nexus eVTOL aircraft, but could extend to electric-powered versions of fixed-wing aircraft.

Sweden-based Heart Aerospace now has letters of intent from a dozen airlines that have provisionally committed to purchasing more than 300 of the company's ES-19 all-electric aircraft. This year, it expects to announce new investment in the project and also some prominent suppliers as partners.

With backing from Eurocontrol's Single European Sky ATM Research program, the TindAIR project will demonstrate how a mix of manned and unmanned aircraft can be integrated into urban and suburban airspace. The project will use multiple aircraft to evaluate a variety of applications, including passenger transportation and emergency medical support. It has yet to announce which aircraft will participate and may still be seeking further partners from among eVTOL aircraft developers.

Volocopter sees the logistics sector as being a substantial part of the urban air mobility market, in which it expects to be operating as many as 100,000 eVTOL vehicles by 2035. The company still won't say whether it plans to raise further funds through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, as fellow panelist Blade Urban Air Mobility is doing.

Volocopter's new white paper spells out in detail the steps it is taking to launch commercial eVTOL services in 2023 or 2024. The report builds on its June 2019 white paper by providing a full description of the ecosystem it sees as imperative to establish the urban air mobility sector, with much emphasis placed on the partnerships it is building to support its business plan.