Hanwha Systems and Overair set to begin first tests of new electric propulsion system later this year

Han­wha Sys­tems has said it is in the final stages of devel­op­ing an elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem and will begin ini­tial tests with Overair — the US spin-off from Karem Air­craft — by the end of June 2021.

The Kore­an defense con­trac­tor has invest­ed $25 mil­lion in Overair and now owns 30 per cent of the com­pa­ny, which is cur­rent­ly devel­op­ing the first pro­to­type of Karem Air­craft’s But­ter­fly eVTOL mod­el.

As report­ed in an arti­cle by Aju Busi­ness Dai­ly, both com­pa­nies will aim to test an air taxi capa­ble of fly­ing at a max­i­mum speed of 200mph by 2025.

Overair’s ‘But­ter­fly’ eVTOL air­craft is a tiltro­tor design and as report­ed in eVTOL.news, is ‘a sleek and ele­gant­ly designed quad-tiltro­tor aircraft…and uses the com­pa­ny’s patent­ed Opti­mum Speed Tiltro­tor (OSTR) tech­nol­o­gy, which has a far high­er sys­tem per­for­mance than typ­i­cal tiltro­tors through inte­grat­ed improve­ments in mul­ti­ple tech­nolo­gies…”

Accord­ing to the spec­i­fi­ca­tions on eVTOL.news, the air­craft will be pilot­ed and can trans­port four pas­sen­gers. Its max­i­mum range will be approx­i­mate­ly 100 miles (161 km).

Karem Air­craft was found­ed by Abe Karem in 2004 and in 2018, was announced as one of Uber Ele­vate’s eVTOL air­craft part­ners for its ecosys­tem.

While Han­wha Sys­tems is a key mem­ber of UAM Team Korea, a pub­lic-pri­vate con­sul­ta­tive body that would com­mer­cial­ize drone taxis in 2025. Oth­er com­pa­ny mem­bers include Kore­an Air, SK Tele­com and Doosan Mobil­i­ty Solu­tions and a gov­ern­ment road map unveiled on 4th June fea­tures plans to com­mer­cialise autonomous flights by 2035.

For more infor­ma­tion about Overair, vis­it https://overair.com/