Pivotal joins Multistate Collaborative (MSCE) led by PennDOT and selected by FAA for the eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP)

Piv­otal is par­tic­i­pat­ing as a team mem­ber of the Mul­ti­state Col­lab­o­ra­tive eIPP (MSCE) led by Penn­syl­va­nia Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (Pen­nDOT), which was select­ed by the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) for the eVTOL Inte­gra­tion Pilot Pro­gram (eIPP).

As part of the col­lab­o­ra­tive, Piv­otal^® will sup­port the MSCE as an Orig­i­nal Equip­ment Man­u­fac­tur­er (OEM) of light eVTOL air­craft.

With Pen­nDOT as lead offer­or, a group of peer state avi­a­tion bureaus with­in the NASAO AAM Mul­ti­state Col­lab­o­ra­tive (AAMMC) cre­at­ed the MSCE Nation­al Inte­gra­tion Com­plex with an express focus on mov­ing the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty indus­try clos­er to rev­enue and return­ing ser­vice to under­served cities and rur­al com­mu­ni­ties who oth­er­wise don’t have the fund­ing for devel­op­ment. They believe this will cre­ate the best chance to bring the ben­e­fits of this new tech­nol­o­gy to the heart­land of Amer­i­ca.

The MSCE Nation­al Inte­gra­tion Com­plex cur­rent­ly includes 18 US States (Penn­syl­va­nia, Vir­ginia, Okla­homa, Mary­land, Ore­gon, Mass­a­chu­setts, Cal­i­for­nia, North Car­oli­na, Alas­ka, Illi­nois, Wash­ing­ton, Maine, New Mex­i­co, New Jer­sey, Delaware, West Vir­ginia, Wyoming and Ten­nessee), three OEMs (BETA, Elec­tra and Piv­otal), and four Oper­a­tors (UPMC STAT Mede­vac, Nul­ton Avi­a­tion Tri State Char­ter, Unit­ed Ther­a­peu­tics and Repub­lic Air­ways).

The MSCE Nation­al Inte­gra­tion Com­plex also includes six Uni­ver­si­ties (includ­ing three FAA UAS Test Sites and mul­ti­ple BEYOND pro­grams), sev­en infra­struc­ture stake­hold­ers bring­ing phys­i­cal and dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture exper­tise, and more than 30 stake­hold­er part­ners rep­re­sent­ing 68 sites with the poten­tial to reach over 50 mil­lion Amer­i­can res­i­dents.

In sup­port­ing this goal of deliv­er­ing last­ing ben­e­fit to all of the Amer­i­can pub­lic, espe­cial­ly in places that do not tra­di­tion­al­ly ben­e­fit from new tech­nolo­gies, the MSCE Nation­al Inte­gra­tion Com­plex has two main goals:

1. Demon­strat­ing, eval­u­at­ing, and devel­op­ing region­al ser­vices that trans­late across state lines with­in regions and across the coun­try; and
2. Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of mar­kets with unmet needs and demand that will allow eIPP devel­op­ment of AAM ser­vices to be tran­si­tioned to rev­enue-bear­ing com­mer­cial ser­vices as soon as the FAA issues type cer­tifi­cates.

Ken Karklin, CEO of Piv­otal, said: “Piv­otal is proud to serve as a key part­ner in the Mul­ti­state Col­lab­o­ra­tive eIPP (MSCE), led by Pen­nDOT, and to help inte­grate advanced air mobil­i­ty into com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try. We are con­tribut­ing a proven air­craft plat­form, and with over eight years of human pilot­ed flight expe­ri­ence, we will also be pro­vid­ing our oper­a­tional exper­tise, train­ing pro­grams, and tech­ni­cal acu­men to the ini­tia­tive.”

The MSCE is focused on “mid­dle Amer­i­ca” – the heart­land of the coun­try that often gets bypassed by new tech­nolo­gies and ser­vices. The MSCE wants to make sure that every Amer­i­can has access to the new tech­nolo­gies and ser­vices that are being cre­at­ed through AAM.

By focus­ing on eco­nom­i­cal­ly and com­mer­cial­ly viable ser­vices across the coun­try, inte­gra­tion into State Sys­tem Plans, with pri­vate cap­i­tal, and the broad­est, deep­est inte­gra­tion com­plex, the MSCE has the poten­tial to breathe new life into our air ser­vices, con­tribute to the devel­op­ment of all com­mu­ni­ties – not just large, wealthy ones – and deliv­er last­ing ben­e­fit to the Amer­i­can peo­ple.

Piv­otal^® designs, devel­ops, and man­u­fac­tures light eVTOL air­craft. An indus­try pio­neer, Piv­otal is renowned for the Black­Fly, the first light pow­ered-lift eVTOL to be com­mer­cial­ly avail­able and deliv­ered to cus­tomers in the Unit­ed States.

In Octo­ber 2023, Piv­otal unveiled its next-gen­er­a­tion pro­duc­tion air­craft, the Helix, open­ing sales in Jan­u­ary 2024. As the first light eVTOL OEM to achieve AS9100D cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, Piv­otal is ded­i­cat­ed to the high­est stan­dards of aero­space qual­i­ty and man­u­fac­tur­ing excel­lence.

The company’s dis­tinc­tive tilt-air­craft archi­tec­ture and scal­able tech­nol­o­gy plat­form have been under con­tin­u­ous improve­ment for well over a decade, and today, Piv­otal has the most mature tech­nol­o­gy in the light eVTOL and civil­ian pow­ered-lift cat­e­gories.

Piv­otal air­craft take off and land vertically—no run­way need­ed. Piv­otal air­craft offer incred­i­ble flex­i­bil­i­ty for a range of use cas­es includ­ing recre­ation, short-hop com­mutes, defense, and pub­lic safe­ty mis­sions.