FutureFlight

Merlin has deployed a pair of Cessna Caravan aircraft to continue testing of its autonomous flight technology at its new facility in New Zealand. The company says this process will include joint cargo delivery operations with local company Freightways.

NASA Flight Trials Evaluate Communications Infrastructure for Advanced Air Mobility

The business aviation community got its first glimpse at what it will be like to travel in nascent eVTOL aircraft, with a full-scale mockup of the Lilium Jet unveiled this week at the European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition in Geneva. The German manufacturer exhibited an example of the Pioneer Edition, which features a club-four seating configuration that gives more space than the standard six-seater Shuttle version.

Kawasaki Motors has become a strategic investor in VoltAero, joining Series B funding for the development, production, and certification of VoltAero’s Cassio electric-hybrid aircraft family. The companies revealed the undisclosed investment just prior to the European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (EBACE) in Geneva but did not specify a dollar amount.  

As it prepares to launch eVTOL air taxi services in 2025, Joby Aviation has become the first advanced air mobility company to achieve registration under the Standard for Business Aircraft Operators (IS-BAO) registration process. The program helps operators apply industry best practices by challenging them to review and compare their safety-related policies, processes, and procedures and then make improvements.

An AAM trip simulator from French startup Moove serves as a multimodal door-to-door portal offered to future AAM operators and airports as an SaaS. With the product, every stakeholder and future passenger can easily visualize flights, their benefits in travel time savings, and reductions in CO2 emissions.

Multiple factors drove Vertical Aerospace’s decision earlier this month to push back the target date to certify its VX-4 four-passenger eVTOL aircraft to the end of 2026.

Artificial intelligence is capable of generating highly optimized aircraft designs that are more efficient than conventional airplanes designed by humans—and they may resemble alien spaceships, Boeing’s chief technology officer Todd Citron said during a panel discussion at the Sustainable Aerospace Together Forum, which Boeing hosted near Seattle last week. Researchers are already using generative AI models to explore new ways to optimize aircraft design, according to Citron.

Merlin Pilot Notches Regulatory Milestone in New Zealand

Autonomous flight pioneer Merlin says it has reached a milestone in its certification efforts with the Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand (CAA). According to the company, the CAA has concluded its review of the first stage of the process and approved Merlin's plan for software aspects of its Merlin Pilot system.

Companies in the advanced air mobility sector aim to revolutionize the way people and cargo move around by introducing new modes of air transportation that are more efficient, sustainable, and accessible than ever before. While technological developments and regulatory approval are the focus of these companies’ efforts to get new aircraft to market, those efforts will be futile if they do not successfully engage with the communities in which their aircraft will operate, according to a member of the FAA’s Advanced Aviation Advisory Committee.