Transcend Air unveils its Vy 400 aircraft ahead of new commuter service launch

Tran­scend Air has announced the devel­op­ment of its Vy 400 VTOL air­craft and plans to launch a com­muter air­line ser­vice between Boston and Man­hat­tan as ear­ly as 2024.

The com­pa­ny has said its six-seat­ed con­cept will pro­vide a faster, more afford­able ser­vice than both heli­copters or con­ven­tion­al air­craft, and with­out the need for air­ports. A jour­ney from New York to Boston would take just 36 min­utes.

Fea­tur­ing a tilt-wing, fly-by-wire design, the Vy 400 will have a light­weight, car­bon-fibre design and fly at 405mph — three times faster than tra­di­tion­al heli­copters — with a range of 450 miles. It also comes with enhanced safe­ty fea­tures, with nov­el advanced avion­ics and a whole-air­craft para­chute that has been in use for near­ly two decades.

Greg Bru­ell, co-founder and CEO of Tran­scend Air, said: “This is a nec­es­sary and trans­for­ma­tive addi­tion to city-to-city trans­porta­tion options. It solves mul­ti­ple prob­lems at once: we’ll take cars off con­gest­ed roads, reduce pol­lu­tion around air­ports, and low­er the cost of air trans­porta­tion while dras­ti­cal­ly reduc­ing trav­el times.”

As well as its Vy 400 air­craft, Tran­scend Air has part­nered with Lily Heli­pads to cre­ate a net­work of zero-emis­sion, barge-based ver­ti­pads. These will be based in Boston Har­bour and around the island of Man­hat­tan, with oth­er loca­tions in Mon­tre­al’s river­front and San Fran­cis­co Bay.

Each ver­ti­pad will be solar-pow­ered and fea­tures inte­grat­ed LED light­ing to enhance take-off and land­ing oper­a­tions. Heat­ed sur­faces ensure no build-up of snow or ice, and a flu­id run-off cap­tures fuel and oil in below-deck tanks for recy­cling.

Tran­scend Air has said they are also crash and hur­ri­cane proof, pro­vid­ing the high­est lev­el of pro­tec­tion to sur­round­ing struc­tures.

Bru­ell adds: “By bring­ing ver­ti­pads close to trav­ellers, we don’t increase air­port traf­fic. And by focus­ing on a safe and envi­ron­men­tal­ly-friend­ly land­ing and take-off infra­struc­ture, as only Lily can help us pro­vide, we will be cre­at­ing a more sus­tain­able way to trav­el.”

For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it https://transcend.aero/index.php