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Volocopter pushes forward with plans to secure FAA approval and bring its eVTOL aircraft service to US cities

Volo­copter is edg­ing clos­er to bring­ing its com­mer­cial air taxi ser­vices to the USA, after the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) accept­ed its appli­ca­tion for con­cur­rent Type Cer­tifi­cate val­i­da­tion.

The Ger­man start­up is seek­ing FAA approval to enter the U.S. mar­ket con­cur­rent­ly with its Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (EASA) type cer­tifi­cate — as it push­es on with plans to accel­er­ate its world­wide expan­sion.

Volo­copter is cur­rent­ly work­ing with EASA on cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for com­mer­cial launch planned in the next two to three years. When the com­pa­ny receives type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion approval from EASA, imme­di­ate­ly fol­lowed by the FAA val­i­da­tion in this time­frame, it says it will be posi­tioned to enter the eVTOL air taxi mar­ket first and pave the way for the urban air mobil­i­ty indus­try to expand ser­vices glob­al­ly.

Flo­ri­an Reuter, CEO of Volo­copter, said: “We are the ‘Pio­neer of Urban Air Mobil­i­ty’ and our accom­plish­ments are set­ting the stage for more exten­sive adop­tion of urban air mobil­i­ty imple­men­ta­tion by our indus­try.

“By focus­ing on a col­lab­o­ra­tive approach to suc­cess, we are bring­ing excel­lence, exper­tise, and expe­ri­ence to the table togeth­er with our part­ners, and with that, we are lead­ing the way to bring urban air mobil­i­ty to life in cities around the globe.”

Volo­copter is the first and only eVTOL air­craft devel­op­er with Design Organ­i­sa­tion Approval (DOA) — the license to devel­op and build cer­ti­fied air­craft from EASA — and is cur­rent­ly in the process of receiv­ing Type Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for its VoloC­i­ty air­craft.

By offer­ing con­cur­rent type cer­tifi­cate val­i­da­tion, the FAA gives air­craft man­u­fac­tur­ers like Volo­copter the oppor­tu­ni­ty to show that they are ful­fill­ing the nec­es­sary require­ments par­al­lel to being cer­ti­fied by the pri­ma­ry author­i­ty of the company’s cur­rent juris­dic­tion. This for­mat pro­motes open com­mu­ni­ca­tion about cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and safe­ty qual­i­fi­ca­tions inter­na­tion­al­ly.

Reuter added: “From the begin­ning, we have con­sid­ered the U.S. an impor­tant mar­ket for our ser­vices. Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is the key to this mar­ket, and we are excit­ed to begin the process of seek­ing approval from the FAA to intro­duce this inno­v­a­tive era of mobil­i­ty not only in Europe and Asia but also in the U.S.”

The VoloC­i­ty air taxi has been built specif­i­cal­ly to meet the grow­ing demand for bet­ter intra-city mobil­i­ty in large US cities, such as Los Ange­les, New York and San Fran­cis­co.

Volo­copter already has a decade of expe­ri­ence in full-scale air­craft test­ing expe­ri­ence and has built up sub­stan­tial inter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships and investors. It has also already demon­strat­ed their exper­tise in elec­tric flight for inner-city mobil­i­ty, with agree­ments in Sin­ga­poreParis, and Dubai.

Addi­tion­al­ly, it is orches­trat­ing a com­plete UAM ecosys­tem with their inno­v­a­tive back­end – the dig­i­tal oper­at­ing sys­tem VoloIQ, an open API plat­form for the UAM indus­try. This will pro­vide ben­e­fits such as: 

  • opti­mal pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence
  • high­est lev­el of oper­a­tional safe­ty
  • part­ner inte­gra­tion for logis­tics, infra­struc­ture, and sup­pli­er
  • and pro­duc­tive reg­u­la­tor and city col­lab­o­ra­tion for imple­ment­ing these ser­vices
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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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