eVTOL aircraft – 2018
Vertical Aerospace (https://www.vertical-aerospace.com) is building technology to revolutionise how people fly, with the ultimate aim of making intercity air travel personal, on-demand and carbon free. The Bristol-based startup has built and flown the UK’s first full scale fully electric vertical take off and landing aircraft. Its unmanned technology demonstrator aircraft weighs 750kg and flew across Cotswold Airport in Kemble, Gloucestershire in June 2018 as part of the company’s flight test programme.
The electric vertical takeoff and landing revolution is upon us, and there’s likely no turning back. That was the message from a growing number of opinion leaders at this year’s Heli-Expo, and one of the major players on this frontier is Bell Flight, which brought its Urban Air Taxi concept to the Heli-Expo exhibit hall. The company invited attendees to demo the concept through virtual reality experiences inside the mockup. We asked Bell’s Director of Innovation, Scott Drennan, when he thinks this technology could appear in the real world, and how it can be implemented. Beyond Bell, Companies like Airbus, Boeing, Embraer, Intel, Amazon, Honda, Toyota, and Uber are researching and investing in an eVTOL future, so watch this space.
