Volocopter acquires DG Flugzeugbau’s manufacturing operations and secures POA from EASA

Volo­copter has secured Pro­duc­tion Organ­i­sa­tion Approval (POA) in com­pli­ance with EASA after acquir­ing its long-term part­ner DG Flugzeug­bau — mean­ing it is now the only com­pa­ny to hold both POA and Design Organ­i­sa­tion Approvals to advance its air­craft towards com­mer­cial launch.

The Ger­man start­up achieved DOA from EASA in Decem­ber 2019 and through its com­pli­ance with EASA Part 21G and Part 21J, is set to bring its first com­mer­cial air­craft to mar­ket once type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is com­plet­ed and it obtains the air oper­a­tor approval in com­pli­ance with EASA.

As part of this acqui­si­tion agree­ment, Volo­copter will inte­grate DG Flugzeugbau’s air­craft pro­duc­tion seg­ment and EASA Part 21G POA. The entire team of high­ly spe­cialised man­u­fac­tur­ing experts will join Volocopter’s pro­duc­tion and work­shop teams. Anoth­er part of the acqui­si­tion agree­ment is to con­tin­ue to hon­our exist­ing sailplane pro­duc­tion con­tracts, under the new own­er­ship.

Flo­ri­an Reuter, CEO of Volo­copter: “Our ten-year part­ner­ship with DG Flugzeug­bau has been an extra­or­di­nary learn­ing expe­ri­ence. Hav­ing this leg­endary indus­try leader on our side to kick-start scal­able and afford­able UAM for peo­ple and car­go has been a game chang­er.

“Today marks an excit­ing mile­stone as we uni­fy DG Flugzeugbau’s lead­er­ship in avi­a­tion pro­duc­tion with Volocopter’s pio­neer­ing UAM goals to estab­lish yet anoth­er cru­cial step­ping-stone for our col­lec­tive glob­al endeav­ors.”

DG Flugzeug­bau is renowned world­wide for its excel­lence in the pro­duc­tion and devel­op­ment of glid­er air­craft, com­pos­ite air­craft man­u­fac­tur­ing, and the tun­ing of World-Cham­pi­onship-win­ning Red Bull Air-Race planes. 

It has held pro­duc­tion cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for more than 40 years, adher­ing to the high­est safe­ty and pro­duc­tion stan­dards accord­ing to EASA and the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Office of Ger­many. The pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties are locat­ed in Bruch­sal, near Volocopter’s head­quar­ters and sup­port ser­i­al pro­duc­tion.

Togeth­er with DG Flugzeug­bau, Volo­copter designed and built the VC200, the first elec­tri­cal­ly pow­ered mul­ti­copter to receive a per­mit to fly it in 2016 and flew this mod­el autonomous­ly in Dubai in 2017 and on stage at the 2018 CES in Las Vegas. Since then, the two com­pa­nies have part­nered to pro­duce the Volo­copter 2X, the Volo­Drone and the VoloC­i­ty.

Hol­ger Back, CEO of DG Avi­a­tion: “At DG Flugzeug­bau, we have always con­tin­ued to strive for per­fec­tion through unique inno­va­tion with glid­ers, vast aero­dy­nam­ic improve­ments, and, for the past ten years, with Volocopter’s eVTOLs.

“We see the future in these air­craft and are excit­ed to com­bine a sec­tion of our com­pa­ny with Volo­copter to invest in the future of sus­tain­able avi­a­tion while con­tin­u­ing our tra­di­tion of build­ing glid­ers and main­tain­ing air­craft.”

The remain­ing part of the for­mer DG Flugzeug­bau is being tran­si­tioned into the new­ly found­ed DG Avi­a­tion. With their Main­te­nance Organ­i­sa­tion Part CAO and their Design Organ­i­sa­tion Part-21J, they will con­tin­ue devel­op­ing and main­tain­ing air­craft and will give the com­plete sup­port for DG and LS glid­ers. 

Volocopter’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion with EASA is eas­i­ly trans­fer­able across glob­al mar­kets, posi­tion­ing it to launch ser­vices across Europe, Asia, and North Amer­i­ca.