Eve Air Mobility Completes Hover & Low-Speed Flights Block, advancing its eVTOL aircraft towards transition flight testing

Eve Air Mobil­i­ty has announced the suc­cess­ful close­out of the hov­er & low‑speed flights block in the flight test cam­paign of its full‑scale engi­neer­ing pro­to­type.

The com­plet­ed block gen­er­at­ed high‑fidelity data and knowl­edge gains that con­tin­ue to mature the pro­gram as Eve pro­gress­es toward tran­si­tion flight test­ing.

The mile­stone reflects Eve’s dis­ci­plined build­ing-block approach, which expands the flight enve­lope step‑by‑step and val­i­dates mod­els, con­trol laws and air­craft behav­ior against real‑world data before mov­ing into more com­plex tests.

Each com­plet­ed block strength­ens the tech­ni­cal foun­da­tion for the next, tight­en­ing the cor­re­la­tion between sim­u­la­tion pre­dic­tions and flight behav­ior.

To-date, Eve has com­plet­ed 59 suc­cess­ful flights and record­ed 2:27:33 of accu­mu­lat­ed flight time, strength­en­ing con­fi­dence in con­trol, loads and aero‑propulsion mod­els, as ground tests pre­pare the air­craft for tran­si­tion flight test­ing.

Johann Bor­dais, CEO of Eve, said: “Clos­ing this phase val­i­dates the dis­ci­pline behind our flight test strat­e­gy. Across 59 flights, we con­firmed sta­ble hov­er per­for­mance and pre­dictable con­trol behav­ior with­in the enve­lope, while expand­ing our under­stand­ing of loads, aero­dy­nam­ics, propul­sion and ener­gy man­age­ment, key foun­da­tions for the tran­si­tion phase and the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion path ahead with the con­form­ing pro­to­types.”

In this phase, the air­craft demon­strat­ed sta­ble hov­er per­for­mance and pre­dictable han­dling through pro­gres­sive­ly more demand­ing maneu­vers. The team first com­plet­ed the low‑speed input phase below 15 knots, exe­cut­ing activ­i­ties to val­i­date con­trol laws, down­wash effects, ther­mal behav­ior and the propul­sion mod­el.

As test­ing pro­gressed, oper­a­tions expand­ed to approx­i­mate­ly 20 knots of ground speed (vehi­cle speed), includ­ing simul­ta­ne­ous four‑axis maneu­vers to fur­ther val­i­date aero­dy­nam­ic and load mod­els, sup­port­ing pro­gres­sion to high­er speeds, a broad­er enve­lope and larg­er con­trol deflec­tions.

Notable mile­stones from this phase include the exe­cu­tion of more than 100 flight test points and the first demon­stra­tions of autoland and the sim­pli­fied fly-by-wire mode, a sec­ondary lay­er of the fly-by-wire sys­tem that is acti­vat­ed when the nor­mal mode is unavail­able.

The air­craft also reached 215 feet above ground lev­el (AGL) and flew for 3 min­utes and 48 sec­onds. Through­out test­ing, the air­craft showed con­sis­tent behav­ior under simul­ta­ne­ous four‑axis inputs. Record­ed noise lev­els remained in line with expec­ta­tions, while propul­sion and bat­tery per­for­mance were bet­ter than antic­i­pat­ed.

Marce­lo Basile, Head of Tests of Eve, said: “Com­plet­ing hov­er and low‑speed test­ing gives us high‑confidence data to val­i­date and refine our aero­dy­nam­ic, propul­sion and load mod­els. That mod­el cor­re­la­tion is what enables dis­ci­plined enve­lope expan­sion. With planned ground tests next, we will be ready to begin tran­si­tion flights, in which we val­i­date the lifter-push­er syn­chro­niza­tion before mov­ing on to the cruise phase.”

Over the com­ing weeks, Eve’s engi­neer­ing pro­to­type will con­duct planned ground tests in prepa­ra­tion for the tran­si­tion flights block, expect­ed to begin from July/August 2026.

The tran­si­tion phase is designed to fur­ther strength­en the devel­op­ment of the final air­craft by expand­ing the enve­lope and val­i­dat­ing per­for­mance as the pro­gram advances toward wing­borne flight.