Fraundorfer Aeronautics to bring Tensor 600X to market after test flight success

Fraun­dor­fer Aero­nau­tics says it plans to launch its two-seat­ed air­craft, the Ten­sor 600X, before the end of the year — which they say will make avi­a­tion ’ a fast, safe, indi­vid­ual and every­day means of trans­port for medi­um dis­tances between 50 and 600km’.

It fol­lows the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of its maid­en flight ear­li­er this year, which saw the air­craft reach speeds of up to 130km/h at a flight alti­tude of 500m. The tech­nol­o­gy and avi­a­tion com­pa­ny added that the con­cept of the Ten­sor 600X is pre­pared for all forms of future mobil­i­ty and designed for var­i­ous types of propul­sion such as elec­tric and hydro­gen.

Christoph Fraun­dor­fer, founder and CEO of Fraun­dor­fer Aero­nau­tics, said: “The first test flight ran to our com­plete sat­is­fac­tion and not only showed that our cal­cu­la­tions were cor­rect, but also impres­sive­ly demon­strat­ed the poten­tial of the tech­nol­o­gy.

“Our vision is to fly in areas where it has not been pos­si­ble before. After sev­en years of devel­op­ment, we have now proven with the Ten­sor 600X that our tech­nol­o­gy is ready for prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tion.”

The Ten­sor 600X is a com­plete­ly new­ly devel­oped ‘com­pound gyro­copter” and works with the prin­ci­ple of autoro­ta­tion. Ener­gy con­tained in the air used to dri­ve the rotor and in addi­tion, a wing gen­er­ates fur­ther lift to increase per­for­mance and sta­bil­i­ty.

The air­craft is about twice as effi­cient as a com­pa­ra­ble heli­copter, with a range of 600 kilo­me­tres and a top trav­el speed of 200 km/h.

Its char­ac­ter­is­tics also make it very suit­able for use in urban envi­ron­ments, such as air­port feed­er ser­vices, but also between cities and in regions with weak infra­struc­ture.

Oth­er appli­ca­tions include res­cue ser­vices, trans­port flights or in dis­as­ter con­trol, as the air­craft can fly very safe­ly, even in poor weath­er con­di­tions. It can be oper­at­ed at low cost and requires only a few metres of take-off or land­ing area.

Fraun­dor­fer Aero­nau­tics revealed that a larg­er ver­sion of the Ten­sor air­craft will also be launched on the Ten­sor plat­form with­in the next 10 years.

To view footage from the maid­en test flight, click on the video below.