Volocopter completes crewed test flight at Saint-Cyr-l’Ecole near Paris, as it provides update on future flights in city

Volo­copter has suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed a crewed test flight at the Aero­drome of Saint-Cyr-l’É­cole, the first bespoke com­mer­cial ver­ti­port for eVTOL air­craft inte­grat­ed with­in the com­pa­ny’s approved flights routes in Paris.

Mak­ing the announce­ment today (Thurs­day), this flight ini­ti­at­ed the eVTOL oper­a­tional val­i­da­tion phase, a crit­i­cal step to mak­ing elec­tric flights a norm in the city and beyond.

For this flight test cam­paign, the com­pa­ny was grant­ed a per­mit to fly with sup­port from the French Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (DGAC), pri­or to receiv­ing a Type Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion (TC) from the Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (EASA).

Dirk Hoke, CEO of Volo­copter, said: “Every­one at Volo­copter is incred­i­bly proud of how far the com­pa­ny has come and what it means to fly today at Saint-Cyr-l’É­cole. City launch­es take time to estab­lish a foothold on the ground, and through open com­mu­ni­ca­tion and ded­i­ca­tion, Volo­copter has become an embod­i­ment of trust, from our part­ners, Europe’s lead­ing avi­a­tion author­i­ties, and Paris which has become one of the most advanced IAM net­works in the world.”

Saint-Cyr-l’É­cole is a com­mune in the west­ern sub­urbs of Paris and locat­ed about 21.4 km (13.3 miles) from the city cen­tre.

The crewed Volo­copter air­craft took flight from the inau­gu­rat­ed ver­ti­port, which built by Groupe ADP, the company’s long­stand­ing Parisian part­ner.

Volo­copter says the com­mence­ment of this phase holds immense sig­nif­i­cance for the entire indus­try, as it will gen­er­ate prac­ti­cal knowl­edge for inte­grat­ing eVTOL air­craft in ver­ti­ports and air­spaces in megac­i­ties world­wide. 

With this flight, the part­ners begin their oper­a­tional val­i­da­tion phase, a pre-com­mer­cial test series to mature the eVTOL ecosys­tem in France. This includes flight maneu­vers to and from the ver­ti­port, ground han­dling, com­mu­ni­ca­tion with air traf­fic con­trol, and bat­tery charg­ing and man­age­ment at ver­ti­ports.

Val­i­da­tion test­ing at an eVTOL-bespoke and route-approved loca­tion in Saint-Cyr-l’É­cole will give Volo­copter a unique advan­tage in gath­er­ing first-hand data on improv­ing its air­craft oper­a­tions.  

Look­ing ahead, Hoke added: “We still aspire to fly at the Auster­litz ver­ti­port lat­er this year. Beyond that, we con­cen­trate on the Type Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the VoloC­i­ty and will start the test phase of Emer­gency Med­ical Ser­vices (EMS) in Ger­many togeth­er with our part­ner ADAC Luftret­tung in 2025.”

This achieve­ment results from more than three years of col­lab­o­ra­tive efforts between Volo­copter and Groupe ADP to advance mul­ti­ple reg­u­la­to­ry approvals on infra­struc­ture and air­craft.

This includes Volocopter’s advi­so­ry role involve­ment as the indus­try pio­neer in the Euro­pean eVTOL cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram, air­space oper­a­tions, and infra­struc­ture design influ­enc­ing the devel­op­ment of the ready-to-oper­ate St. Cyr ver­ti­port brought to fruition by Groupe ADP.