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Volocopter’s 2X soars above Florida’s skies as part of flight test campaign with Tampa International Airport

Volo­copter has marked the first-ever flight test of an eVTOL air­craft in an oper­a­tional and large inter­na­tion­al air­port in the USA, after kick­ing off a mul­ti­lay­ered flight test cam­paign with Tam­pa Inter­na­tion­al Air­port in Flori­da.

The flight test cam­paign fea­tured Volo­copter’s 2X and con­sist­ed of air­craft down­wash and out­wash test­ing with the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) and per­for­mance test­ing in local envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions. This mile­stone also rep­re­sent­ed the first time an eVTOL air­craft has flown in the Sun­shine State.

Dirk Hoke, CEO of Volo­copter, added: “Fly­ing at a large, active air­port always presents a mul­ti­tude of chal­lenges, but we proved that our air­craft is safe, qui­et, and effi­cient­ly use­ful in a city like Tam­pa. Volo­copter sees this as a start­ing point of the entry into ser­vice in the U.S., and we will come back to show our con­tin­ued progress. We thank all attend­ing guests for the sup­port giv­en to make this first-ever eVTOL flight in Flori­da a suc­cess.”

Tam­pa Inter­na­tion­al Air­port is a major eco­nom­ic dri­ver for the Tam­pa Bay region and is the gate­way to the west coast of Flori­da. It is con­sis­tent­ly ranked among the world’s most beloved air­ports, serv­ing more than 23 mil­lion annu­al pas­sen­gers with routes to more than 85 non­stop des­ti­na­tions.

The air­port has received top awards at the state, nation­al and inter­na­tion­al lev­el, includ­ing being ranked the #1 Large Air­port North Amer­i­ca by J.D. Pow­er in 2022 and 2023 and the fifth in the world in cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion among air­ports of its size. 

Invi­tees to this event includ­ed Flori­da Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary Jared Pur­due, May­or of Tam­pa Jane Cas­tor, and lead­ers from Con­gress who are sup­port­ing UAM indus­try growth, reg­u­la­to­ry advance­ment, and accel­er­a­tion of pub­lic accep­tance of eVTOL air­craft in the coun­try

Joe Lopano, CEO of Tam­pa Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, added: “Tam­pa Inter­na­tion­al Air­port has always embraced inno­va­tion and futur­is­tic plan­ning, and we’ve already iden­ti­fied a poten­tial site for urban air mobil­i­ty as a part of our Mas­ter Plan. This tech­nol­o­gy has the poten­tial to trans­form the avi­a­tion and trans­porta­tion indus­try, and we’re excit­ed to part­ner with Volo­copter as we intro­duce and visu­al­ize the amaz­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties that lie ahead.”

State­side, Volo­copter recent­ly announced its part­ner­ship with the Bris­tow Group to begin oper­a­tions of eVTOL air­craft in the near future, with Flori­da being one of the tar­get­ed areas of oper­a­tion.

Since 2018, Volo­copter has flown in Las Vegas, Oshkosh, Dal­las-Fort Worth area, and Tam­pa. Con­tin­ued and vis­i­ble flight test cam­paigns in view of the pub­lic are cru­cial steps to build­ing an effi­cient UAM ecosys­tem that receives the com­mu­ni­ties’ sup­port. This includes cities, with Volo­copter’s part­ner­ship with Urban Move­ment Labs in Los Ange­les which was signed in 2021.

Volo­copter expects to receive a final cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of its com­mer­cial eVTOL air­craft, the VoloC­i­ty, from the Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (EASA) in 2024. The com­pa­ny is also in the con­cur­rent val­i­da­tion process with the FAA, which was sub­mit­ted in 2020.

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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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