Airbus launches full-scale prototype testing for CityAirbus NextGen eVTOL aircraft

Air­bus has offi­cial­ly begun remote­ly pilot­ed flight test­ing of its full-scale pro­to­type for the CityAir­bus NextGen elec­tric ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing (eVTOL) air­craft. 

This flight test fol­lows a sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ment phase in Decem­ber 2023, when the CityAir­bus pow­ered up for the first time as part of a series of ground tests. 

These tests focused on eval­u­at­ing the aircraft’s elec­tric motors, rotors, flight con­trols, and avion­ics as part of prepa­ra­tions for its first flight.

The CityAir­bus NextGen is a four-seat eVTOL air­craft designed for short-dis­tance urban air mobil­i­ty, capa­ble of fly­ing up to 80 kilo­me­tres (50 miles) at speeds of 120 km/h. 

The air­craft boasts a 12-metre wingspan and incor­po­rates an inno­v­a­tive rotor design, with four rotors mount­ed on the rear wing for ver­ti­cal lift. 

Addi­tion­al­ly, the design includes a pair of for­ward-fac­ing pro­pellers and two push­er props at the tail, enhanc­ing its over­all func­tion­al­i­ty. 

Operational readiness

The CityAir­bus devel­op­ment is spear­head­ed by Airbus’s urban air mobil­i­ty (UAM) busi­ness unit, which is lever­ag­ing exper­tise across the group. 

Specif­i­cal­ly, Air­bus engi­neers in Toulouse are col­lab­o­rat­ing to devel­op bat­tery packs for the air­craft, draw­ing on their expe­ri­ence with satel­lite tech­nol­o­gy. 

The com­pa­ny is explor­ing var­i­ous poten­tial appli­ca­tions for the CityAir­bus, includ­ing pub­lic trans­porta­tion and emer­gency med­ical sup­port.

Fur­ther­more, Air­bus is work­ing with 30 part­ners through the Bavar­i­an Air Mobil­i­ty Ini­tia­tive to estab­lish an ecosys­tem for ear­ly oper­a­tions in south­ern Ger­many. 

Part­ners include Deutsche Bahn, Munich Air­port, and ver­ti­port devel­op­er Sky­ports. 

One of the key com­po­nents of this ini­tia­tive is the use of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence algo­rithms to man­age tasks such as pre­dict­ing slot allo­ca­tion needs.

In Italy, Air­bus has secured its first eVTOL air­line part­ner, ITA Air­ways, and expand­ed its ecosys­tem devel­op­ment net­work to include ener­gy provider Enel and Urban V, the ver­ti­port divi­sion of Aero­por­ti di Roma.

More­over, the com­pa­ny is work­ing on defin­ing emer­gency med­ical ser­vice (EMS) mis­sions for eVTOL air­craft in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Nor­we­gian Air Ambu­lance Foun­da­tion, as well as with part­ners in Esto­nia and Japan.