Limosa and Airborne partner to prototype composite airframes

Limosa and Air­borne have agreed to pro­duce the Limo­Con­nect air­craft pro­to­type air­frame in par­al­lel to design­ing auto­mat­ed man­u­fac­tur­ing lines and sup­port­ing Limosa’s indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion from pro­to­type through to ser­i­al pro­duc­tion.

They aim to ramp up Limosa air­frame pro­duc­tion and to meet press­ing OEM timescales. The Limo­Con­nect all-elec­tric 1+7 seater ver­ti­cal and con­ven­tion­al eVTOL + eCTOL air­craft can take-off and land con­ven­tion­al­ly to use avail­able air­ports before the emer­gence and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of new ver­ti­port infra­struc­tures. Entry into ser­vice is planned for 2028 with type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion under Trans­port Cana­da Civ­il Avi­a­tion (TCCA) reg­u­la­tions.

Air­borne cov­ers the entire prod­uct devel­op­ment cycle for com­pos­ite struc­tures from ini­tial fea­si­bil­i­ty study through to ser­i­al auto­mat­ed pro­duc­tion and dig­i­tal man­u­fac­tur­ing equip­ment. Capa­bil­i­ties include design, tool­ing, stress analy­sis, pro­to­type pro­duc­tion, process devel­op­ment, eco­nom­ic analy­sis, automa­tion and soft­ware devel­op­ment.

Limosa founder and CEO Dr Hamid Hami­di remarked: ‘’Design for man­u­fac­tura­bil­i­ty and ser­vice­abil­i­ty is the core mis­sion at Limosa. The pro­duc­tion rate of these new vehi­cles will sit some­where between auto­mo­tive and aero­space indus­try prod­ucts, so I believe the inte­gra­tion of auto­mat­ed com­pos­ite man­u­fac­tur­ing will be a game chang­er.

“I am excit­ed by this part­ner­ship with Air­borne and its com­bined auto­mat­ed com­pos­ite man­u­fac­tur­ing capa­bil­i­ty will allow Limosa to mass pro­duce the com­pos­ite air­frame struc­ture by hav­ing envi­ron­men­tal issues such as waste reduc­tion and recy­cla­bil­i­ty in mind from the begin­ning.”

Air­borne busi­ness devel­op­ment man­ag­er for AAM Jamie Snud­den added: “The pro­duc­tion rates and tech­ni­cal require­ments for AAM are dif­fer­ent to any mar­kets that have come before, and there­fore a new approach to automa­tion is need­ed.

“There also needs to be a col­lab­o­ra­tive approach between design and indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion to ensure rapid devel­op­ment for OEM timescales. Air­borne looks for­ward to sup­port­ing Limosa in bring­ing about its vision for the devel­op­ment of the Limo­Con­nect.”

Limo­Con­nect revealed its Limo­Con­nect in a video last year.

Limosa Inc reveals its sev­en-seater Limo­Con­nect V1 eVTOL air­craft, which has eSTOL capa­bil­i­ties