Airspeeder and IWC Schaffhausen announce partnership ahead of first global eVTOL aircraft racing series

Lux­u­ry Swiss watch­mak­er IWC Schaffhausen has joined forces with Air­speed­er, the world’s first elec­tric fly­ing car rac­ing series, in a new engi­neer­ing and time­keep­ing part­ner­ship.

The Air­speed­er rac­ing series is the brain­child of founder Matt Pear­son, who also runs Alau­da — the world’s first per­for­mance elec­tric fly­ing car man­u­fac­tur­er. The planned glob­al race series will even­tu­al­ly see a full grid of eVTOL air­craft man­u­fac­tured by Alau­da, man­aged by indi­vid­ual teams and oper­at­ed by elite pilots.

It will see the air­craft com­pete at height of up to 40 metres off the ground and trav­el­ling at top speeds of 200 km/h. The air races will take place on elec­tron­i­cal­ly cre­at­ed tracks and be streamed glob­al­ly, to min­imise the envi­ron­men­tal impact of more com­plex logis­tics and infra­struc­ture.

Pear­son said: “Time and again, IWC has enabled dreams and nur­tured inno­va­tion. Like us, they see beyond the known hori­zon towards some­thing dif­fer­ent, bold­er and more inven­tive. This com­mit­ment to progress is some­thing we also val­ue, and we are delight­ed that the entire team at Schaffhausen believes in our vision.

“Whether the result is a beau­ti­ful­ly designed watch or a rev­o­lu­tion­ary fly­ing car, we all rely on human and tech­ni­cal endeav­our to make tru­ly impact­ful change through giant tech­ni­cal leaps. I can’t wait to see what we can achieve togeth­er.”

Over its 150 year his­to­ry, IWC Schaffhausen has devel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion for cre­at­ing func­tion­al com­pli­ca­tions, espe­cial­ly chrono­graphs and cal­en­dars. A pio­neer in the use of tita­ni­um and ceram­ics, IWC today spe­cialis­es in high­ly engi­neered tech­ni­cal watch cas­es man­u­fac­tured from advanced mate­ri­als, such as tita­ni­um- alu­minide and Cer­ata­ni­um®.

Christoph Grainger-Herr, IWC CEO, said: “It’s fan­tas­tic to play a part in bring­ing Matt’s bold vision to life. The Air­speed­er team are true pio­neers of avi­a­tion and they are bring­ing togeth­er two things that are real­ly close to IWC’s heart.

“From mak­ing some of the planet’s best pilots’ watch­es for the last eighty years to the cut and thrust of mod­ern auto­mo­tive design and rac­ing, we have always equipped and inspired those who dare to dream. We are proud to col­lab­o­rate on an endeav­our that will make such a pro­gres­sive impact on soci­ety.”

Air­speed­er devel­oped its first small-scale pro­to­type per­for­mance eVTOL in 2017 and has con­tin­ued to finesse the design ever since through com­put­er mod­el­ling and sim­u­la­tion, as well as exten­sive test­ing.

Its newest vehi­cle, the Mk3, is the world’s first ful­ly func­tion­al elec­tric fly­ing rac­ing car, and fea­tures an octo­copter lay­out, air­foil-pro­filed rotor arms, cut­ting- edge car­bon-fibre com­pos­ites and the lat­est EV bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy.

Air­speed­er has said new advances in safe­ty are deliv­ered through a suite of tech­nolo­gies and engi­neer­ing ele­ments nev­er before seen on an eVTOL air­craft. These inno­va­tions include LiDAR and Radar col­li­sion avoid­ance sys­tems that cre­ate a ‘vir­tu­al force field’ around the craft to ensure close but ulti­mate­ly safe rac­ing.

An entire grid of these remote­ly pilot­ed Mk3s is cur­rent­ly being built ahead of this year’s com­pet­i­tive pilot­less events. The Mk4 is expect­ed to launch in 2022, before the inau­gur­al crewed sea­son gets under­way.

• 

• 

• 

•