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Thales and Diehl Aerospace join Airbus to develop flight control computers for the CityAirbus NextGen eVTOL aircraft

Air­bus has signed a tri­lat­er­al agree­ment with Thales and Diehl Aero­space for the joint devel­op­ment of the flight con­trol com­put­ers of its CityAir­bus eVTOL air­craft.

The cen­tral flight con­trol sys­tem of CityAir­bus NextGen will com­bine extra­or­di­nary com­put­ing pow­er with light­weight design and high­est safe­ty stan­dards.

Diehl and Thales are join­ing Air­bus in invest­ing into the emerg­ing eVTOL air­craft mar­ket, with both com­pa­nies devel­op­ing their own sys­tem that will be inte­grat­ed into a dis­sim­i­lar archi­tec­ture to com­ply with the new EASA reg­u­la­tion for eVTOL air­craft. This archi­tec­ture is essen­tial to ensur­ing the redun­dan­cy of the com­put­ers and the vehicle’s safe­ty. The devel­op­ments will be sup­port­ed with pub­lic fund­ing from the Ger­man and French gov­ern­ments, respec­tive­ly.

Jörg Müller, Head of Urban Air Mobil­i­ty at Air­bus, said: “I’m delight­ed to announce today the first sys­tem part­ner­ship for the devel­op­ment of our CityAir­bus NextGen. UAM is a joint effort. Nobody can do it alone.

“Air­bus is reach­ing out to poten­tial part­ners from the indus­try to design and build an opti­mised vehi­cle for safe and effi­cient air trans­port in urban envi­ron­ments. With Thales and Diehl, we are proud to have two excel­lent part­ners with a lot of exper­tise on board.”

Thales will be respon­si­ble for the pri­ma­ry com­put­ing sys­tem of the CityAir­bus NextGen, while Diehl is devel­op­ing the sec­ondary flight con­trol com­put­er. The sys­tem ensures that the sec­ond, inde­pen­dent flight con­trol com­put­er mon­i­tors the data of the pri­ma­ry com­put­er sys­tem per­ma­nent­ly, and it can also take over the flight con­trol itself.

Thales has more than 40 years of expe­ri­ence in elec­tri­cal flight con­trols, hav­ing sup­plied the sys­tems for the first ever fly-by-wire com­mer­cial air­lin­er, the Air­bus A310. Diehl Aero­space, a joint ven­ture of the French part­ner Thales and Diehl Avi­a­tion, has many decades of expe­ri­ence in avion­ics for civ­il and mil­i­tary air­craft and heli­copters.

Josef Köch­er, CEO at Diehl Avi­a­tion, said: “In the future, eVTOLs will be a key part of mobil­i­ty and will enor­mous­ly enrich it – in our cities but also beyond. For this, the safe oper­a­tion of the inno­v­a­tive air­craft, of course, plays an essen­tial role.

“We see a trend-set­ting part­ner­ship in the close col­lab­o­ra­tion with Air­bus and Thales for the reli­a­bil­i­ty and safe­ty of the CityAir­bus. We are proud to be on board with our exper­tise, and we are look­ing for­ward to see­ing the CityAir­bus in the skies soon.”

Yan­nick Assouad, Thales Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent, Avion­ics, added: “We are thrilled to see that our close coop­er­a­tion with Air­bus and Diehl is once again deliv­er­ing con­crete results through an agree­ment that will add a whole new dimen­sion to air mobil­i­ty. With this safe and inno­v­a­tive flight con­trol solu­tion, we are work­ing togeth­er to build an air­space envi­ron­ment we can all trust.”

The ful­ly elec­tric CityAir­bus NextGen was revealed in Sep­tem­ber 2021 at the Air­bus Sum­mit. It is equipped with fixed wings, a V‑shaped tail, and eight elec­tri­cal­ly pow­ered pro­pellers as part of its dis­trib­uted propul­sion sys­tem. It is designed to car­ry up to four pas­sen­gers in a zero emis­sions flight in mul­ti­ple appli­ca­tions.

The CityAir­bus is being devel­oped to fly with a 80 km range and to reach a cruise speed of 120 km/h, mak­ing it per­fect­ly suit­ed for oper­a­tions in major cities for a vari­ety of mis­sions. It is opti­mised for hov­er and cruise effi­cien­cy, while not requir­ing mov­ing sur­faces or tilt­ing parts dur­ing tran­si­tion. The first flight of a pro­to­type is planned for 2023.

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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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