FeaturedNews

Horizon Aircraft upgrades to 7‑seat hybrid electric eVTOL Aircraft

Dri­ven by pos­i­tive results from flight-test­ing of its large-scale pro­to­type and feed­back from key poten­tial cus­tomers, Hori­zon Air­craft has upgrad­ed its eVTOL spec­i­fi­ca­tion to a more com­mer­cial­ly viable 7‑seat capac­i­ty.

The com­pa­ny had ini­tial­ly planned to pro­duce a five-seat air­craft, but due to pos­i­tive flight-test­ing results of its 50%-scale pro­to­type along­side sophis­ti­cat­ed aero­dy­nam­ic, struc­tur­al, and elec­tri­cal analy­sis, it now believes that it can expand its ini­tial pro­to­type to include room for one pilot and six pas­sen­gers.

Poten­tial cus­tomers in the med­ical evac­u­a­tion (mede­vac), busi­ness avi­a­tion and com­mer­cial car­go sec­tors have advised the Com­pa­ny that larg­er air­craft with low­er pas­sen­ger seat per mile costs are bet­ter aligned with their needs.

The new enlarged pro­to­type design is now called the Cavorite X7, with a gross weight esti­mat­ed at 5,500 lbs with a pro­ject­ed use­ful load of 1,500 lbs. With an esti­mat­ed max­i­mum speed of 250 miles per hour and an aver­age range of over 500 miles with fuel reserves, the exper­i­men­tal air­craft, if even­tu­al­ly licensed for com­mer­cial use, would excel in mede­vac, crit­i­cal sup­ply deliv­ery, dis­as­ter relief, and spe­cial mil­i­tary mis­sions.

The pro­posed air­craft would also be attrac­tive for region­al air mobil­i­ty, mov­ing peo­ple and car­go up to 500 miles. The Cavorite X7 can recharge its bat­ter­ies enroute when it is fly­ing like a tra­di­tion­al air­craft after its ver­ti­cal take­off. After a ver­ti­cal land­ing the Cavorite X7 can recharge its bat­tery array in under 30 min­utes, ready for its next mis­sion.

Bran­don Robin­son, CEO of Hori­zon Air­craft, said: “The shift to a sev­en-seat air­craft has been dis­cussed since the begin­ning of our hybrid eVTOL ini­tial con­cept. It’s a size that just makes sense com­mer­cial­ly.

“We are very con­fi­dent our unique fan-in-wing tech­nol­o­gy can sup­port this new and larg­er plat­form and our test­ing results have pro­vid­ed us with con­fi­dence that we can poten­tial­ly scale to an even larg­er air­craft.”

The Cavorite X7 is planned to fly 98% of its mis­sion in a low-drag con­fig­u­ra­tion like a tra­di­tion­al air­craft, mak­ing it safer and eas­i­er to cer­ti­fy than rad­i­cal new eVTOL designs.

The hybrid elec­tric sys­tem will recharge the bat­tery array in-flight and post-flight, while also pro­vid­ing sig­nif­i­cant sys­tem redun­dan­cy. Cavorite X7’s design has attract­ed inter­est from with­in the indus­try, won sev­er­al grants and a US Depart­ment of Defense research and devel­op­ment con­tract award.

Avatar photo

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.

eVTOL Insights is part of the Industry Insights Group. Registered in the UK. Company No: 14395769