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Air­bus is con­struct­ing a test cen­tre for CityAir­bus NextGen in the town of Donauwörth, where com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tives, politi­cians and busi­ness lead­ers attend­ed a ground-break­ing open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, reports a press release. Donauwörth is the cap­i­tal of the Donau-Ries dis­trict in Swabia, Bavaria, Ger­many.

The build­ing is sched­uled to be com­plet­ed by ear­ly 2023. Occu­py­ing a sur­face area of 1,000 m², the new struc­ture will be used for tri­al­ing sys­tems for eVTOL Air­craft. The cer­e­mo­ny was attend­ed by Anna Christ­mann, the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Coor­di­na­tor of Ger­man Aero­space Pol­i­cy.

Wolf­gang Schoder

Wolf­gang Schoder, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of Air­bus Heli­copters in Ger­many, com­ment­ed, “We are invest­ing in the future of elec­tric flight because we believe this tech­nol­o­gy holds key poten­tial for zero-emis­sion flights. Urban Air Mobil­i­ty will change the way we trav­el in cities and beyond and it will be a new pil­lar of busi­ness for Air­bus.”

Anna Christ­mann, Aero­space Coor­di­na­tor, added, “Air­bus Heli­copters is lay­ing an impor­tant foun­da­tion for the fur­ther progress of elec­tri­cal­ly pow­ered air­craft at the Donauwörth site.”

She con­tin­ued, “As the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, we wel­come the efforts made by indus­try to devel­op new propul­sion sys­tems and air­craft that will enable cli­mate-neu­tral avi­a­tion in the future.”

The press release explains, “The hangar inte­grates high-volt­age equip­ment and lithi­um bat­ter­ies and is designed to under­go test­ing with the high­est safe­ty pre­cau­tions. All tests need­ed before CityAir­bus NextGen’s maid­en flight can be car­ried out there.”

And goes on, “These tests cov­er the elec­tric motors with their eight rotors as well as the aircraft’s oth­er sys­tems such as flight con­trols and avion­ics.”

Last Sep­tem­ber, Air­bus unveiled its eVTOL pro­to­type the CityAir­bus NextGen. With a range of 80 km and cruise speed of 120 km/h, it has been devel­oped to suite a range of deploy­ments in urban areas. For, as well as car­ry­ing pas­sen­gers, the air­craft could also be deployed on med­ical mis­sions or used in an eco-tourism con­text.

Air­bus is work­ing close­ly with indus­tri­al and insti­tu­tion­al part­ners to lead the devel­op­ment of urban air mobil­i­ty ecosys­tems, as recent­ly announced with ITA Air­ways in Italy, as well as through the launch of the Air Mobil­i­ty Ini­tia­tive in Ger­many.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.airbus.com/en/innovation/zero-emission/urban-air-mobility/cityairbus-nextgen