VIDEO: Shanghai-based AutoFlight flies three of its aircraft prototypes simultaneously

Shang­hai-based Aut­oFlight has per­formed a test flight of three Air­taxi pro­to­types fly­ing simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, each the weight of a medi­um-sized elec­tric vehi­cle. The com­pa­ny aims to demon­strate its capa­bil­i­ty in rapid pro­to­type design and man­u­fac­tur­ing to the world and learn more about its own capa­bil­i­ties.

In Feb­ru­ary one of AutoFlight’s pro­to­types flew 250 km on a sin­gle bat­tery charge, a range com­pa­ra­ble to a bat­tery elec­tric car. The com­pa­ny plans to put the pro­to­types into pro­duc­tion and next year will see a car­go ver­sion oper­at­ing in Asia. This will form the basis of the devel­op­ment of a pas­sen­ger ver­sion in the com­ing years, grad­u­al­ly ful­fill­ing the high­est safe­ty stan­dards for avi­a­tion, so it is as safe as an air­lin­er.

The com­pa­ny designs and man­u­fac­tures in the Shang­hai area and has a loca­tion in Augs­burg, Ger­many, for lat­er Euro­pean pas­sen­ger prod­ucts, which will be approved for the Euro­pean air­space.

Air taxis promise to have a few unique fea­tures, like being very safe, very qui­et and very afford­able. So, rather than being a niche prod­uct for emer­gen­cies or elites, they aim to com­ple­ment urban and region­al means of trans­port.

The for­ma­tion flight fea­tured three gen­er­a­tions of the air­craft demon­strat­ing its rapid evo­lu­tion. The three air­craft flew at dif­fer­ent heights for dif­fer­ent dura­tions. The ear­li­est iter­a­tion of Pros­per­i­ty flew at an alti­tude of 80 m and cov­ered 28 km in 12 min­utes, the next flew at an alti­tude of 100 m cov­er­ing 91 km in 35 min­utes, and the lat­est mod­el cov­ered 120 km in 42 min­utes achiev­ing an alti­tude of 120 m.

All three air­craft tran­si­tioned in and out of hor­i­zon­tal and ver­ti­cal flight while in for­ma­tion. Aut­oFlight achieved its first full-scale eVTOL tran­si­tion flight in Jan­u­ary 2022 and what it claims is a world record first eVTOL flight of 250.3 km on a sin­gle bat­tery charge in Feb­ru­ary 2023.

The Pros­per­i­ty I is an advanced elec­tric air­craft capa­ble of ver­ti­cal take­off, fol­lowed by a tran­si­tion to tra­di­tion­al hor­i­zon­tal flight, and boasts of speeds over 200 km/h and a range exceed­ing 250 km. Its ini­tial appli­ca­tion will include car­go trans­porta­tion in Asia as ear­ly as in 2024 with the Car­ryAll car­go ver­sion of the air­craft.

Aut­oFlight par­tic­i­pat­ed in the 2023 Paris Air Show from 19–25 June at Le Bour­get in France for the Pros­per­i­ty I eVTOL air­craft, includ­ing full inte­ri­or design of the cab­in.