MagLev Aero chooses GE Additive’s Addworks for its breakthrough propulsion platform for ultra-quiet eVTOL aircraft

MagLev Aero has select­ed GE Additive’s AddWorks^TM con­sul­tan­cy team to sup­port the devel­op­ment of addi­tive tech­nolo­gies and mate­ri­als for its pro­pri­etary MagLev Hyper­Drive™ aero propul­sion plat­form.

With a nov­el engi­neer­ing approach, MagLev Aero says it is solv­ing crit­i­cal chal­lenges in urban eVTOL busi­ness mod­els, prac­ti­cal­i­ty and deploy­ment. The MagLev Hyper­Drive™ applies the same fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples that dri­ve ultra­fast, ultra-qui­et, high-effi­cien­cy maglev trains, but in a cir­cu­lar rotor. This approach has the poten­tial to deliv­er less noise, more pay­load, ele­vat­ed safe­ty and com­pelling indus­tri­al design for high-effi­cien­cy elec­tric air­craft.

David Chapin, AddWorks engi­neer­ing leader, said: “We’re hon­oured to have been cho­sen by MagLev Aero. The eVTOL seg­ment is rethink­ing com­mer­cial aero­space, both in terms of busi­ness mod­el and tech­ni­cal inno­va­tion and cre­ativ­i­ty, and our team is look­ing for­ward to explor­ing how addi­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing can play a role in this emerg­ing indus­try.”

MagLev Aero’s propul­sion-first busi­ness mod­el allows its plat­form to be inte­grat­ed into dif­fer­ent OEMs’ air­craft con­cepts and eVTOLs, enabling indus­tri­al design ele­ments and use cas­es pre­vi­ous­ly thought impos­si­ble with tra­di­tion­al rotor tech­nol­o­gy. The first gen­er­a­tion of eVTOLs has achieved tremen­dous mile­stones, improv­ing the via­bil­i­ty of Urban Air Mobil­i­ty.

But the indus­try, to this point, has yet to solve the crit­i­cal, real-world chal­lenge of take-off and land­ing noise. MagLev Aero says it rep­re­sents the next gen­er­a­tion of elec­tric, ultra-qui­et, high-per­for­mance and safe ver­ti­cal lift propul­sion that’s nec­es­sary to bring clean ener­gy flights to every­day peo­ple.

Ian Ran­dall, co-founder and CEO of MagLev Aero, added: “This is a major step for MagLev Aero. We are thrilled to har­ness the pow­er of GE Additive’s exten­sive indus­try expe­ri­ence, cut­ting-edge met­al addi­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­niques and proven track record of design­ing and fab­ri­cat­ing addi­tive man­u­fac­tured propul­sion com­po­nents that sat­is­fy the strin­gent require­ments of aero­space cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.”

GE Addi­tive is one of the first com­pa­nies to be pub­licly announced as sup­port­ing MagLev Aero, dri­ving the poten­tial of addi­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing to unlock a new gen­er­a­tion of eVTOL air­craft designs that achieve ultra-low noise oper­a­tion – not just in high-alti­tude cruise, but more impor­tant­ly, in take-offs and land­ings to achieve com­mu­ni­ty accep­tance from the gen­er­al pub­lic, as well as wide­spread acces­si­bil­i­ty.

MagLev Aero is active­ly in talks with major OEMs and is sup­port­ed by tech­nol­o­gy investors and indus­try lead­ers who have endorsed its inno­v­a­tive approach, includ­ing Break­through Ener­gy Ven­tures, Mate­r­i­al Impact, Stage 1 Ven­tures, Grit Cap­i­tal and Moai Cap­i­tal, among oth­ers.

Rod Ran­dall, MagLev Aero’s co-founder and chair­man, added: “The MagLev Hyper­Drive plat­form rep­re­sents a trans­for­ma­tive step in ver­ti­cal lift effi­cien­cy and air­craft design.

“By work­ing with AddWorks’ world-class con­sul­tants and engi­neers, we are lever­ag­ing advanced tech­nolo­gies and mate­ri­als to achieve opti­mal strength and stiff­ness at the light­est weight on our mis­sion to open up ultra­qui­et elec­tric air mobil­i­ty to the mass­es.”