Thousands watch virtual launch of US Air Force’s ‘Agility Prime’ eVTOL programme

An esti­mat­ed 6,000 peo­ple tuned in to watch the launch of the US Air Force’s ‘Agili­ty Prime’ eVTOL pro­gramme yes­ter­day (Mon­day).

The vir­tu­al event is being broad­cast online this week as a result of the coro­n­avirus out­break, and its objec­tive is to rein­force the USAF’s com­mit­ment to part­ner­ing with indus­try investors and help­ing to fund the cre­ation of tech­nolo­gies which could be used for mil­i­tary mis­sions. 

Open­ing speech­es came from Agili­ty Prime Lead, Col. Nathan Diller, and Dr. Will Rop­er, Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of the US Air Force for Acqui­si­tion, Tech­nol­o­gy and Logis­tics.

High-pro­file speak­ers also includ­ed US Sec­re­tary of Trans­porta­tion Elaine Chao, Sec­re­tary of the Air Force Bar­bara Bar­rett, Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen­er­al David Gold­fein and Air Mobil­i­ty Com­man­der Gen­er­al Maryanne Miller.

Dr Rop­er said: “VTOL sys­tems rep­re­sent a tru­ly trans­for­ma­tive leap ahead in trans­porta­tion, but it is very clear that they will have mil­i­tary impor­tance. We want to be engaged ear­ly so that inno­va­tors in this space get the ben­e­fits of not just com­mer­cial part­ner­ships, but mil­i­tary ones too.

“Covid-19 was a punch in the mouth that we have respond­ed to bril­liant­ly. Keep­ing this pro­gramme on track sends a strong mes­sage that inno­va­tion does not stop because of this cri­sis. We have to do things dif­fer­ent­ly and this vir­tu­al event is an exam­ple that inno­va­tion does not wait on any­one.”

Col. Diller also spoke to Uber’s Engi­neer­ing Direc­tor of Avi­a­tion, Mark Moore. The ride-hail­ing firm is regard­ed as one of the inno­va­tors in the eVTOL indus­try, and plans to cre­ate an aer­i­al ride-shar­ing net­work in Dal­las, Los Ange­les and Mel­bourne by 2023.

Moore said: “This indus­try has grown so much faster than any of us imag­ined. I think this is because peo­ple are real­is­ing the com­pelling con­ver­gence oppor­tu­ni­ties across tech­nol­o­gy, soci­etal needs, as well as the unique busi­ness cas­es that con­nect the two togeth­er. The inno­va­tion core of this is big avi­a­tion propul­sion tech­nol­o­gy change. That is what is dri­ving this.

“As soci­ety goes through rapid changes, instead of ground trans­porta­tion sys­tems tak­ing decades to catch up to its needs, node-based infra­struc­ture like eVTOL trans­porta­tion can adapt in months. These are real­ly excit­ing times, and we’re only a few years into this tech­nol­o­gy. It’s going to be amaz­ing to go through this week and see how we can all work togeth­er.”

Mon­day’s after­noon ses­sion then talked about envi­sion­ing a future with ‘fly­ing ORBs’ from the US Gov­ern­ment. As described by the Air Force, an ORB is an elec­tric ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing vehi­cle with an elec­tric pow­er source and dis­trib­uted elec­tric propul­sion. It can be remote, manned or autonomous and hov­ers on rotors — but some might also have wings — and it’s com­mer­cial off-the-shelf.

But it’s not an air­plane, as they need run­ways; not a drone, because they car­ry peo­ple; not a heli­copter, because they have ‘large, loud and expen­sive blades’ and not a fly­ing car, because they use road­ways and run­ways.

As well as being used for urban air mobil­i­ty, ORBs have use in dis­as­ter response and relief mis­sions, med­ical evac­u­a­tion and search and res­cue and logis­tics oper­a­tions.

The morn­ing ses­sion today (Tues­day), takes place from 11am-1pm EDT and will be about Flight test, Rapid con­tract­ing, and Air­wor­thi­ness to speed ORB Devel­op­ment. The after­noon ses­sion is enti­tled ‘Per­spec­tives from the Ear­ly Inno­va­tors who have been Dri­ving Change’ and will be from 3pm-5pm EDT.

To watch Mon­day’s ses­sions, and the rest of the week’s sched­ule, vis­it https://agilityprime.com/#/