AMSL Aero’s Vertiia completes Australian maiden test flight
Australian green aerospace company AMSL Aero today announced that Vertiia, ‘‘the world’s most efficient and longest-range Electric Vertical Take Off and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft’, has successfully completed its maiden test flight.
This is the first ever flight by an Australian-designed and built eVTOL, which is the new generation of aircraft that take off and land like a helicopter but fly like a plane. Vertiia completed its tethered hover by remote control in the Central West region of New South Wales ‘in strict accordance with Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) regulations’.
The flight marks a vital milestone for Vertiia, which has zero carbon emissions and can carry four passengers and a pilot at a cruising speed of 300kph. Vertiia will be able to fly up to 1,000km or three times the range of any eVTOL, which makes it ‘the most efficient eVTOL in the world’.
AMSL Aero expects to commence deliveries of the Vertiia in 2026 to customers in the aeromedical, cargo, emergency, and regional air mobility sectors. AMSL Aero CEO and Vertiia inventor Andrew Moore noted that it is nearly 130 years since Australian aeronautical pioneer Lawrence Hargrave invented the box kite, upon which the Vertiia’s ‘unique box wing’ design is based.
“As Vertiia lifted off, we felt the same rush of adrenaline that Lawrence Hargrave must have felt nearly 130 years ago. The Vertiia prototype flew better than we expected. It was remarkably smooth and a delight to fly,” said Moore.
