Jetoptera and Eanan Al Samma “Begin Flight Test Campaign in UAE”

U.S‑based Jetoptera, an aer­i­al mobil­i­ty start­up, and Eanan Al Sam­ma, a UAE Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) com­pa­ny, have com­menced their joint flight test cam­paign of a sub­scale, box-wing VTOL J‑500 autonomous air­craft, reports a press release.

This ver­sion of the J‑500 VTOL car­go Unmanned Aer­i­al Vehi­cle (UAV) being co-devel­oped by the two com­pa­nies, is one of the ways of per­fect­ing the auto­mat­ed tran­si­tions to and from for­ward flight. 

The release explains, “The goal of the cam­paign is to fur­ther inte­grate the J‑series flight con­trols to devel­op the autopi­lot and nav­i­ga­tion sys­tem for the larg­er J‑500 UAV. The aim is to address the UAE mar­ket.”

The UAV is to be pow­ered by a unique, patent­ed Flu­idic Propul­sive Sys­tem™ devel­oped by Jetoptera. The craft will have a max­i­mum speed of 200 knots and pay­loads of up to 50 kg.

This sub­scale mod­el is bat­tery pow­ered and will oper­ate in auto­mat­ed mode, includ­ing VTOL, hov­er and tran­si­tions, to and from for­ward flight. 

“The tests con­duct­ed so far show excel­lent auto­mat­ed con­ver­sions from hov­er to for­ward flight and vice ver­sa,” explains the release. “As well as hov­er maneu­ver­abil­i­ty of the air­craft, with­out pilot inter­ven­tion. In auto­mat­ed mode, the mis­sion is uploaded to the onboard con­trol sys­tem and the entire mis­sion is exe­cut­ed with­out any inter­ac­tion from the pilot.”

Dr Andrei Evulet and Ulrich Weckx Sign­ing the Orig­i­nal Part­ner­ship Agree­ment Last Novem­ber in Dubai (Cred­it: Jetoptera)

This sub­scale uses elec­tric duct­ed fans for propul­sion. Over the next few months, the vehi­cle will be upgrad­ed and test­ed with the J‑500 avion­ics devel­oped by Eanan, util­is­ing the Emben­tion Veronte autopi­lot as adapt­ed to the unique con­trols of the J‑series air­craft devel­oped by Jetoptera.

The two com­pa­nies remain on track to com­plete the con­struc­tion of the first pro­to­type by the end of this year. Data col­lect­ed from the sub­scale air­craft offers the require­ments for the J‑500.

Dr. Andrei Evulet, CEO of Jetoptera, com­ment­ed, “Our col­lab­o­ra­tion has reached an impor­tant mile­stone for auto­mat­ed VTOL flights in the UAE. The first flights of our J‑series has start­ed the devel­op­ment of the con­trols and avion­ics for the larg­er ver­sion.”

He con­tin­ued, “Using the sub­scale air­craft at the loca­tion, we are col­lect­ing impor­tant flight data that is instru­men­tal for the devel­op­ment and val­i­da­tion of the avion­ics planned for the FPS-pow­ered vehi­cle. The part­ner­ship allows Jetoptera to accel­er­ate its roadmap for the intro­duc­tion of the larg­er J‑series air taxis, on loca­tion, and under the unique local con­di­tions, where the pri­ma­ry mar­ket tar­get will be.”

The tri­al cam­paign has com­menced at the Xrange test field near Abu Dhabi and will con­tin­ue over the com­ing months. Mul­ti­ple auto­mat­ed mis­sions con­duct­ed to date include ver­ti­cal take-off, hov­er, tran­si­tions, hor­i­zon­tal flight, ver­ti­cal land­ing and endurance tests. Just like the J‑500, the sub­scale mod­el is also capa­ble of con­ven­tion­al take-off and land­ing.

Ulrich Weckx, CEO of Eanan Al Sam­ma, remarked, “By inte­grat­ing Jetoptera’s FPS tech­nol­o­gy, we are enhanc­ing the capa­bil­i­ties and oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy of our air­craft, offer­ing future clients unpar­al­leled per­for­mance and reli­a­bil­i­ty.” 

Back­ground

Eanan Al Sam­ma is a lead­ing provider of advanced Unmanned Aer­i­al Sys­tems (UAS). Based in Dubai at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Aero­space Hub, the com­pa­ny “is com­mit­ted to deliv­er­ing inno­v­a­tive and reli­able UAS solu­tions.” Eanan is one of the first from the Mid­dle East to devel­op AAM air­craft.

https://www.jetoptera.com/news/eanan-al-samma-partner

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.jetoptera.com

www.eanan.ae

(Top image: Jetoptera)

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