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AIR’s eVTOL Completes First Full Transition to Cruise Flight

AIR has announced that its AIR One inau­gur­al vehi­cle has suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed its first full for­ward flight, per­fect­ly tran­si­tion­ing from hov­er to its nom­i­nal cruis­ing speed while loaded at full 1100kg capac­i­ty.

This kicks off thou­sands of flight hours planned for the AIR One as part of its FAA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process, which will see range, speed and endurance increase as it con­tin­ues to opti­mise the air­craft.

While much of the emerg­ing advanced air mobil­i­ty (AAM) mar­ket focus­es on com­mer­cial appli­ca­tions such as air taxis, AIR claims it is spear­head­ing per­son­al air mobil­i­ty, by offer­ing an every­day alter­na­tive for short dis­tance com­mut­ing.

Capa­ble of tak­ing off and land­ing on any flat sur­face with a 250 kg pay­load, the all-elec­tric two-seater offers a prac­ti­cal long range on a sin­gle charge at speeds up to 155 mph (250 km/h). AIR One can be stored in most garages and dri­ve­ways and is suit­able for trail­er hauls.

CEO and co-founder of AIR Rani Plaut com­ment­ed “AIR is proud to play a role in the glob­al AAM move­ment, and we’re look­ing for­ward to 2024 when adop­tion of pri­vate­ly-owned eVTOLs takes flight.”

Fol­low­ing this lat­est mile­stOne, AIR plans to trans­fer the bulk of its oper­a­tions and R&D to the Unit­ed States, where fur­ther flight test­ing, devel­op­ment, and ongo­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion col­lab­o­ra­tion with the FAA will con­tin­ue.

Lead­ing up to the full tran­si­tion flight test­ing, AIR com­plet­ed mul­ti­ple suc­cess­ful and exten­sive propul­sion tests and per­formed a series of nec­es­sary elec­tron­ic and sta­bil­i­ty tests pri­or to AIR One’s first for­ward flight, which served as an impor­tant proof of con­cept.

In addi­tion, AIR has invest­ed in strate­gic part­ner­ships with avi­a­tion com­pa­nies around the world and unveiled the full-scale AIR One pro­to­type at this year’s Ken­tucky Der­by, EAA Air­Ven­ture, and the Detroit Auto Show, all since com­ing out of stealth near­ly a year and a half ago.

In July, AIR announced that its inau­gur­al Air One eVTOL suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed its first hov­er test after receiv­ing its air­wor­thi­ness cer­tifi­cate on June 21st at Megid­do in north­ern Israel.

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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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