FutureFlight

Heart Aerospace feels that its native Scandinavian region is an ideal environment to advance the early adoption of electric air transportation because the local population is increasingly insistent that aviation must lower its environmental footprint and because governments are actively supportive of the new technology. Its ES-19 aircraft is expected to enter commercial service during 2026.

Eight months after the Japanese automotive group invested $394 million with eVTOL developer Joby Aviation, Toyota Research Institute-Advanced Development has announced an $800 million fund called Woven Capital that will focus on autonomous mobility, automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and so-called smart cities.

Turkish defense group Baykar Technologies says it will step up the development of flying cars but indicated that it may take more than a decade for these to be ready for use on urban roads.

In an announcement on September 21, European aerospace group Airbus mapped out a plan to get hydrogen-powered airliners into commercial service by 2035 and unveiled concepts for aircraft that could carry between 100 and 200 passengers on flights of up to around 2,300 miles.

Hidden Level's Airspace Monitoring System provides low-altitude data to support detect-and-avoid performance for autonomous aircraft. The company is also a partner in Uber's plans for urban air mobility operations.

Heavy financial losses resulting from the grounding of Boeing's 737 Max airliner and the collapse of the airline market in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic have prompted the U.S. aerospace giant to withdraw from what it now considers non-core businesses.

U.S. manufacturers have been slow to declare plans to enter the electric aviation sector and General Motor's apparent interest in providing batteries for eVTOL aircraft is still a long way short of interest being shown by Asian automotive groups.

At the Greentech Festival in Berlin, Volocopter opened reservations for early flights in its VoloCity aircraft at fares of €300 ($357). The company has continued flight testing of its prototype throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

Former Airbus CTO Paul Eremenko's startup, Universal Hydrogen, wants to deliver hydrogen modules directly to aircraft, bypassing the need for costly infrastructure to fuel hydrogen-powered aircraft. The company will subsidize the cost of converting aircraft.

California-based Ampaire has achieved first flight of the second technology demonstrator of its hybrid-electric Electric EEL aircraft. Hawaiian regional airline Mokulele is set to be the launch customer with trial operations to begin before the end of 2020.