AltoVolo enters global Advanced Air Mobility market to launch its three-passenger Sigma aircraft, with 500-mile range

A qui­et rev­o­lu­tion in avi­a­tion is about to take flight. AltoVolo’s launch vehi­cle, Sig­ma, is set to take on both the elec­tric ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing (eVTOL) space and the glob­al heli­copter mar­ket.

The company’s found­ing mem­bers have iden­ti­fied a less cap­i­tal-inten­sive devel­op­ment path and a quick­er route to prof­itabil­i­ty in the advanced air mobil­i­ty (AAM) sec­tor.

Alto­Vo­lo is one to watch in 2025 hav­ing engi­neered a vehi­cle which it says is 80 per cent qui­eter than heli­copters and with 4x bet­ter range than lead­ing eVTOL play­ers such as Archer Avi­a­tion. Oth­er key fea­tures include:

• Fea­tur­ing a hybrid-elec­tric tilt­ing jet propul­sion sys­tem for improved effi­cien­cy and reduced noise
• Result­ing in a 500-mile range and cruise speed of 220mph
• Safe sta­ble flight is pos­si­ble fol­low­ing fail­ure of one jet, it also has a bal­lis­tic para­chute
• Com­pact size and light weight design, just 4.8m wide and 980kg with three pas­sen­gers on board

Will Wood, Alto­Vo­lo founder and CEO, said: “The Sig­ma is a state­ment of intent, reimag­in­ing the way we live and trav­el on our plan­et. We are build­ing the fastest point to point trans­port solu­tion and have already achieved sig­nif­i­cant break­throughs to make this hap­pen.”

The Sigma’s cut­ting-edge design and engi­neer­ing has been val­i­dat­ed by Dr Richard E Brown of Sophro­dyne Aero­space, a lead­ing author­i­ty on aero­dy­nam­ics.

Alto­Vo­lo has also received sup­port from Ansys who pro­vide sim­u­la­tion tools to For­mu­la 1 teams. Scale pro­to­type flight test­ing is com­plete, and quick progress is being made towards pro­duc­tion of a full-scale demon­stra­tor. Autonomous flight sys­tems are pro­vid­ed by Emben­tion, the Span­ish firm who sup­ply cer­ti­fied flight con­trollers to Ama­zon Prime Air.

No need for a run­way

Alto­Vo­lo has com­bined a patent pend­ing tilt­ing elec­tric jet design and inte­grat­ed aero­dy­nam­ics, to lever­age the high burst capa­bil­i­ty of bat­ter­ies for ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing (VTOL), and the ener­gy den­si­ty of liq­uid fuel for long range flight. Its foot­print is small enough to land on dri­ve­ways, rooftops or yachts.

At its heart, AltoVolo’s mis­sion is to make flight a part of every­day life. No ter­mi­nals. No timeta­bles. No con­ges­tion. No depen­dence on pub­lic infra­struc­ture or wait­ing for urban plan­ning poli­cies to catch up.

Build­ing the future of per­son­al trans­port

Qual­i­fy­ing cus­tomers will be invit­ed to join the wait­ing list for a launch edi­tion Sig­ma vehi­cle in ear­ly July. Alto­Vo­lo is deliv­er­ing what it has dubbed a “ver­ti­cal hybrid jet” that gives its own­er time, inde­pen­dence, and reach. Cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties far beyond the short-haul city mis­sions most eVTOLs are tar­get­ing.

The Sig­ma is meant for region­al air mobil­i­ty, as well as urban air mobil­i­ty. It’s built for those who pre­fer to move when they decide, to where they choose, in the fastest, safest and most effi­cient way. Alto­Vo­lo is a per­son­al air­craft, designed for peo­ple who under­stand the art of liv­ing.

Alto­Vo­lo is an aero­space start­up found­ed by design engi­neer Will Wood, who plans to make flight a part of every­day life by dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduc­ing the cost per pas­sen­ger mile for pri­vate air trav­el.

Wood has pre­vi­ous­ly sup­port­ed the likes of Aston Mar­tin, Fer­rari and Wayve, in con­cep­tu­al­is­ing and engi­neer­ing inno­v­a­tive trans­port relat­ed prod­ucts. He also led design for a suc­cess­ful US eVTOL start-up in 2024.