eVTOL News Summary

France’s SITA to pro­vide IT ser­vices at Sky­ports’ AAM ver­ti­ports

Sky­ports has struck a part­ner­ship with French air indus­try IT spe­cial­ist SITA to out­fit its future ver­ti­ports with dig­i­tal ser­vices facil­i­tat­ing pas­sen­ger use of air taxi trans­porta­tion.

UK-based Sky­ports said its part­ner­ship with SITA will pro­vide a vari­ety of dig­i­tal appli­ca­tions that will help pas­sen­gers ben­e­fit from future air taxi trans­port, both before they arrive at ver­ti­ports and dur­ing their move­ment through them to depar­ture.

The first gen­er­a­tion of the linked tech solu­tions will be built into the Paris-region Cer­gy-Pon­toise air­port that’s cur­rent­ly being adapt­ed as France’s first eVTOL air­craft hub.

(News Source: https://dronedj.com/2022/06/15/frances-sita-to-provide-it-services-at-skyports-aam-vertiports/)

Lil­i­um Tweaks Its eVTOL Design for Short Run­ning Land­ings

Lil­i­um has revealed a key design change in its elec­tric ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing (eVTOL) air­craft cur­rent­ly under devel­op­ment: the addi­tion of tra­di­tion­al land­ing gear.

Engi­neers said adding tri­cy­cle land­ing gear to the finalised pre­lim­i­nary design of the Lil­i­um Jet will offer pilots the option to exe­cute short run­ning land­ings as an alter­na­tive to land­ing ver­ti­cal­ly.

The change, said Lil­i­um chief tech­nol­o­gy offi­cer Alas­tair McIn­tosh, is about man­ag­ing pre­cious avail­able ener­gy dur­ing all sit­u­a­tions in the bat­tery-pow­ered air­craft. The Lil­i­um Jet is designed to car­ry a pilot and six pas­sen­gers with a max­i­mum take­off weight (MTOW) of 3,175 kg (7,000 pounds).

(News Source: https://www.flyingmag.com/lilium-tweaks-its-evtol-design-for-short-running-landings/)

AirA­sia & Ver­ti­cal Aero­space To Launch Air Taxi Ser­vice For AirA­sia Super App

AirA­sia CEO Tony Fer­nan­des has post­ed a series of pho­tos on his Insta­gram shar­ing the lat­est project for the AirA­sia Super App and Air Asia Ride; Elec­tric Air Taxi. More specif­i­cal­ly, these air­crafts are known as the VX4 eVTOL made by Ver­ti­cal Aero­space. AirA­sia is appar­ent­ly part­ner­ing up with Ver­ti­cal Aero­space to cre­ate a plat­form for these air taxis to be used in Malaysia.

This project has actu­al­ly been report­ed back in Feb­ru­ary but noth­ing was con­firmed at the time but now he has con­firmed that AirA­sia has signed a mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing to lease about 100 of the VX4 eVTOL air­crafts. The AirA­sia CEO posed togeth­er with Stephen Fitz­patrick, the founder of Ver­ti­cal Aero­space as proof that they have sealed the deal.

(News Source: https://hype.my/2022/278507/airasia-vertical-aerospace-to-launch-air-taxi-service-for-airasia-super-app/)

Overair nabs $145M to pro­duce eVTOL pro­to­type by 2023

Overair, a Cal­i­for­nia-based elec­tric ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing (eVTOL) vehi­cle start­up, has secured $145 mil­lion in fund­ing that will go toward the devel­op­ment of But­ter­fly, the company’s exper­i­men­tal air­craft pro­to­type, by the sec­ond half of 2023.

As Overair works toward achiev­ing Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, the start­up will use this pro­to­type to val­i­date its designs and mit­i­gate any tech­no­log­i­cal risks, accord­ing to Josh Aronoff, head of busi­ness devel­op­ment at Overair.

“We have proven Butterfly’s propul­sion sys­tem, so we will now begin val­i­dat­ing Butterfly’s abil­i­ty to oper­ate safe­ly in real-world weath­er con­di­tions, car­ry sig­nif­i­cant pay­loads and fly incred­i­bly qui­et­ly,” said Ben Tign­er, co-founder and CEO of Overair.

(News Source: https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/14/overair-nabs-145m-to-produce-evtol-prototype-by-2023/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADVidLFdmR2oh6aY8VYZx71wFEGaT9f3a5whYAOSMQEy6w1o9tFk7OuLtxM5Rc2TvE3PwY9B46BAeXIJ6nrjCYJV-q1s_6llgWEEeaOcdyGDLrMvh277s6vXrTYgX0givZy9yW-foLGnesDhh43rFuQXjyKlU0yqZZW62c55JdtW)