Volocopter completes first flight of an eVTOL aircraft at Palace of Versailles and plans to fly in central Paris later this year

Volo­copter has con­duct­ed the world’s first eVTOL flight test with­in the premis­es of the World Her­itage Palace of Ver­sailles.

Tak­ing place yes­ter­day (Sun­day), it marks the con­clu­sion of the com­pa­ny’s mul­ti-day oper­a­tional val­i­da­tion test cam­paign at the Aero­drome of Saint-Cyr-l’Ecole and Ver­sailles.

Volo­copter and its part­ners, which include Groupe ADP, plan to return to Paris lat­er this year and fly its air­craft in the cen­tre of the French cap­i­tal.

Dirk Hoke, CEO of Volo­copter, said: “I am elat­ed with the ded­i­ca­tion and pro­fes­sion­al­ism of the Volo­copter team who spent months to get where we are today. Every new loca­tion and flight take tremen­dous effort from us, our part­ners, and author­i­ties.

“The sus­tain­able air mobil­i­ty com­mu­ni­ty is still at the start line, but today’s flight in this excep­tion­al envi­ron­ment was the per­fect clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny to our sum­mer, as we look for­ward to return­ing to Paris very soon.” 

As dawn broke over Ver­sailles, Volocopter’s air­craft took flight in front of the icon­ic back­drop of the Grand Tri­anon and its sur­round­ing gar­dens. The flight was also wit­nessed by the French Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (DGAC).

Volo­copter says the suc­cess­ful exe­cu­tion of this flight rein­forces the ulti­mate attes­ta­tion of trust in the safe­ty of the air­craft and its brand from the French and Euro­pean avi­a­tion author­i­ties.

The com­pa­ny has flown in mul­ti­ple coun­tries, includ­ing Sau­di Ara­bia, Italy, South Korea, USA, Sin­ga­pore and the UAE.