Textron eAviation Announces “Nexus eVTOL Flight Testing at Salina Regional Airport”

Tex­tron eAv­i­a­tion, a Tex­tron Inc com­pa­ny, announced this week it is to con­duct flight test­ing of its Nexus eVTOL full-scale tech­nol­o­gy demon­stra­tor air­craft at Sali­na Region­al Air­port (SLN), Kansas in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Sali­na Air­port Author­i­ty, reports a press release. 

This pro­gram will fol­low the suc­cess­ful con­clu­sion of ini­tial flight tests, which are planned dur­ing 2025 at the Nation­al Insti­tute of Avi­a­tion Research facil­i­ty in Wichi­ta. The tri­als at SLN will be instru­men­tal in val­i­dat­ing the air­craft’s full per­for­mance enve­lope.

The release explains, “The Nexus is a mul­ti-mis­sion air­craft designed to address the glob­al demand for sus­tain­able avi­a­tion solu­tions. This zero-emis­sion air­craft, con­fig­ured for one pilot and four pas­sen­gers, is pow­ered by a dis­trib­uted elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem. It fea­tures four tilt­ing pro­pellers and two aft sta­tion­ary ver­ti­cal rotors, enabling a wide range of appli­ca­tions such as pas­sen­ger trans­port, pub­lic air­craft oper­a­tions and car­go ser­vices.”

SLN has estab­lished itself as an impor­tant site for Uncrewed Air­craft Sys­tems (UAS) test­ing, hav­ing host­ed Beyond-Visu­al-Line-of-Sight (BVLOS) oper­a­tions under the FAA’s Inte­gra­tion Pilot Pro­gram (IPP) and Beyond pro­grams. 

“The air­port’s lead­er­ship in UAS inno­va­tion,” con­tin­ues the release “is fur­ther bol­stered by the pres­ence of the Kansas State Uni­ver­si­ty Applied Avi­a­tion Research Cen­ter (AARC), which con­ducts cut­ting-edge UAS research and oper­a­tions. Giv­en its exten­sive his­to­ry, proven suc­cess in UAS oper­a­tions and broad access to air­space, Sali­na Region­al Air­port is an ide­al loca­tion for con­duct­ing these piv­otal tests and advanc­ing the future of avi­a­tion.”

Nexus eVTOL full-scale tech­nol­o­gy demon­stra­tor air­craft under con­struc­tion

Kriya Shortt, Pres­i­dent & CEO of Tex­tron eAv­i­a­tion, com­ment­ed, “Kansas boasts a rich avi­a­tion his­to­ry, and we’re proud to work along­side the Sali­na Air­port Author­i­ty to test these emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies so close to home. The sup­port and facil­i­ties pro­vid­ed are vital as we advance towards bring­ing the Nexus eVTOL to mar­ket.”

Pieter Miller, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the SLN Author­i­ty, added, ”Sali­na has a long­stand­ing tra­di­tion of sup­port­ing avi­a­tion inno­va­tion, and we look for­ward to con­tribut­ing to the suc­cess of the Nexus eVTOL pro­gram.”

In addi­tion to sup­port­ing the flight test­ing for the Nexus eVTOL, the col­lab­o­ra­tion of Kansas State Uni­ver­si­ty, the Nation­al Insti­tute for Avi­a­tion Research (NIAR) and Sali­na Region­al Air­port under­scores a shared com­mit­ment to advanc­ing avi­a­tion tech­nol­o­gy in the state of Kansas.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://e‑aviation.com

(Images: Tex­tron eAv­i­a­tion)

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