New video from Dufour Aerospace captures its eVTOL demonstrator in flight with sound

Dufour Aero­space has released an on-board video of its eVTOL demon­stra­tor doing a full-tran­si­tion flight with sound, as it con­tin­ues to make progress with its test­ing pro­gramme.

The Swiss start-up has already com­plet­ed the first phase, under­tak­ing more than 500 test flights this sum­mer, and said the demon­stra­tor has already helped the team build the tech­nol­o­gy for its manned tilt-wing air­craft, aEro3 — which will be used for med­ical trans­port and region­al air mobil­i­ty.

In a press release, Dufour Aero­space said: “The demon­stra­tor was ‘designed as a research plat­form to prove our under­stand­ing of the flight dynam­ics and devel­op our con­trol laws for large size tilt-wing air­craft.

“As a research plat­form, it has not been opti­mised for noise emis­sions. Nonethe­less, we think it is inter­est­ing to hear the char­ac­ter of the noise it pro­duces. Note that this is an on-board record­ing, from direct­ly below the props, and even so it is sig­nif­i­cant­ly less noisy than a heli­copter.”

Dufour Aero­space has said it is going to equip the next pre-series pro­to­type with more opti­mised props, which will reduce the total noise sig­na­ture. The com­pa­ny added that it also thinks tilt-wing air­craft with elec­tric propul­sion enable many new oppor­tu­ni­ties in ver­ti­cal mobil­i­ty, as they offer greater safe­ty, effi­cien­cy, and speed than heli­copters.

“Because they are also so much qui­eter and more afford­able, they will be far more accept­ed by the pub­lic,” the com­pa­ny said.

Dufour Aero­space’s CEO, Thomas Pfam­mat­ter, and Chief Tech­nol­o­gy Offi­cer, Jas­mine Kent, were recent guests on the eVTOL Insights pod­cast, where they talked more about their elec­tric avi­a­tion vision and aEro3.

You can lis­ten to the episode by click­ing here.