Dufour Aerospace adds two aerospace experts to growing team

Swiss start-up Dufour Aero­space has appoint­ed Manuel Flepp to lead the devel­op­ment of the com­pos­ite struc­ture of its eVTOL air­craft, aEro.

Flepp is a senior Kopter engi­neer who has led a num­ber of sys­tems and com­po­nents on the SH09 heli­copter, includ­ing the inno­v­a­tive tail boom design.

He holds a Mas­ters degree in mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing from ETH Zurich, with a spe­cial­i­sa­tion in advanced struc­tures, and has been part of their devel­op­ment team since the begin­ning, man­ag­ing projects from con­cep­tion to flight test­ing.

Flep­p’s appoint­ment fol­lows that of Karsten Fis­ch­er, who joined Dufour Aero­space ear­li­er this month as an advi­sor for cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, con­fig­u­ra­tion con­trol, process and qual­i­ty man­age­ment.

Fis­ch­er has more than 20 years of aero­space indus­try expe­ri­ence in con­cep­tion, imple­men­ta­tion and oper­a­tion of Euro­pean Part 21 Design Organ­i­sa­tions, and also Part 21 Pro­duc­tion Organ­i­sa­tions. In his role at Dufour Aero­space, he will focus on an effec­tive and effi­cient imple­men­ta­tion of its future EASA Part 21 DOA and POA.

Dufour Aero­space say its advanced eVTOL air­craft will be five times faster than trav­el­ling by car.

As an exam­ple, the com­pa­ny says a car jour­ney from its head­quar­ters in Zer­matt to Milan — which typ­i­cal­ly takes near­ly 3 hours and 20 min­utes — can take just 22 min­utes in its aEro air­craft.

The reduced trav­el­ling time also show­cas­es how this method of trans­porta­tion can be sig­nif­i­cant envi­ron­men­tal advan­tages.

For more infor­ma­tion about the aEro Project, vis­it https://dufour.aero/