REGENT Completes First Crewed Flight of Viceroy Seaglider

REGENT Craft has com­plet­ed the first human-crewed flight of its Viceroy Seaglid­er pro­to­type, mark­ing a step for­ward in the devel­op­ment of an all-elec­tric ves­sel designed for high-speed coastal trans­porta­tion.

The flight took place at REGENT’s head­quar­ters on Nar­ra­gansett Bay in Rhode Island, with two cap­tains aboard. The Viceroy trav­elled 1,956 feet (596 metres) at an alti­tude of 33 feet (10 metres) above the water for approx­i­mate­ly 30 sec­onds.

The test marks the first crewed flight of REGENT’s Viceroy and fol­lows ear­li­er uncrewed flight test­ing of the company’s small­er Squire Seaglid­er drone. REGENT said the Viceroy flight will be fol­lowed by fur­ther sea tri­als as the com­pa­ny con­tin­ues test­ing the air­craft ahead of planned pro­duc­tion.

The flight also marks the first time a wing-in-ground effect ves­sel has been engi­neered and read­ied for com­mer­cial and defense oper­a­tion at scale.

“This is the moment we have been envi­sion­ing and tire­less­ly pur­su­ing for the past five and a half years: REGENT has suc­cess­ful­ly proven safe, effi­cient ground-effect flight,” said Bil­ly Thal­heimer, co-founder and CEO at REGENT. 

The Viceroy Seaglid­er flight marks the start of a new era in mobil­i­ty, unlock­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties across pas­sen­ger trav­el, defense mis­sions, and car­go trans­port. I’m so grate­ful to the amaz­ing team who made his­to­ry today. We’re now mov­ing quick­ly toward pro­duc­tion to deliv­er Seaglid­ers to coast­lines around the world

Seaglid­ers are designed to oper­ate in three modes: float­ing on their hull at low speeds, trav­el­ling on hydro­foils and fly­ing close to the sur­face of the water using wing-in-ground-effect tech­nol­o­gy. The com­bi­na­tion is intend­ed to allow the ves­sels to oper­ate from exist­ing mar­itime infra­struc­ture while trav­el­ling faster than con­ven­tion­al fer­ries.

REGENT says the Viceroy is being devel­oped to car­ry up to 12 pas­sen­gers and two crew mem­bers, with a planned top speed of 180 mph and a range of up to 180 miles. The com­pa­ny says its dig­i­tal con­trol sys­tem will allow cer­ti­fied mariners to oper­ate the ves­sel using con­trols sim­i­lar to those of a boat.

“Com­plet­ing this flight test val­i­dates years of rig­or­ous engi­neer­ing and oper­a­tional work and gives us the con­fi­dence to move into full-rate pro­duc­tion,” said Mike Klink­er, co-founder and CTO at REGENT. 

“We showed today that fly­ing a Seaglid­er is every bit as smooth and safe as we designed it to be. I can’t wait to get onboard and to share the expe­ri­ence with oth­ers as we make our vision for the future of mar­itime mobil­i­ty a real­i­ty

The devel­op­ment could even­tu­al­ly have impli­ca­tions beyond con­ven­tion­al pas­sen­ger trans­porta­tion. Faster con­nec­tions between coastal cities could sup­port tourism, hos­pi­tal­i­ty and event-based busi­ness­es, includ­ing ser­vices that use trav­el expe­ri­ences as part of their cus­tomer offer­ing.

The announce­ment comes short­ly after REGENT dis­closed a $240 mil­lion Series B fund­ing round intend­ed to sup­port pro­duc­tion of its Viceroy and Squire mod­els. The com­pa­ny is also build­ing out a 255,000-square-foot man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty in Rhode Island.

REGENT has said it has com­mer­cial orders span­ning six con­ti­nents. Its first U.S. launch part­ner is lux­u­ry coastal trav­el oper­a­tor The Twen­ty Five, which has ordered up to 60 Viceroy ves­sels.

Thomas Sleightholm

Thomas is a con­tent writer for eVTOL Insights, cov­er­ing all aspects of the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem. Got a sto­ry for him? Please send an email to editorial@evtolinsights.com

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