UK-based eVTOL start-up ARC Aerosystems completes proof of concept

ARC Aerosys­tems has com­plet­ed full tran­si­tion tests for the ARC C150 on the full scale pro­to­type, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly com­plet­ed hov­er test and full tran­si­tion on a half-scale pro­to­type.

The C150 design fea­tures con­ven­tion­al wings com­bined with mul­ti­ro­tor propul­sion, which com­bines key ele­ments of both heli­copters and small aero­planes, and offers greater reli­a­bil­i­ty, effi­cien­cy and low­er emis­sions.

Tran­si­tion test­ing is one of the most cru­cial aspects for VTOL crafts, prov­ing the C150 is able to move smooth­ly from ver­ti­cal to hor­i­zon­tal flight to allow for both ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing and con­ven­tion­al flight.

It can trans­port 30 kg of car­go up to 400 km, includ­ing deliv­ery of vital med­ical sup­plies, blood and organ trans­port, as well as last-mile par­cel deliv­ery and forestry mis­sions.

Stud­ies show that 50% of cus­tomers in the logis­tics indus­try are will­ing to pay for same-day deliv­ery, of which 70% are res­i­den­tial and 30% are com­mer­cial cus­tomers. ARC UAV appli­ca­tions include:
* Deliv­ery to off­shore facil­i­ties such as ships, wind tur­bines, oil plat­forms
* Deliv­ery of vital med­ical sup­plies to remote areas
* Just in time deliv­ery in man­u­fac­tur­ing of urgent required goods
* Trans­porta­tion of high val­ue or time sen­si­tive items between Free Zones
* Trans­porta­tion of high val­ue or time sen­si­tive items to remote areas

ARC is now mov­ing towards secur­ing the final stages of cer­ti­fi­ca­tion to allow this prod­uct to enter a mar­ket expect­ed to grow to $51.18 bil­lion in 2031 at a com­pound annu­al growth rate (CAGR) of 22%, and with an ever-grow­ing focus on envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty, crafts such as these will play a sig­nif­i­cant role.

ARC Aerosys­tems has a group of experts in the fields of aero­dy­nam­ics, air­craft design and propul­sion sys­tems work­ing togeth­er to devel­op a range of prod­ucts that will rede­fine the air trav­el­ling expe­ri­ence. The pro­to­types have fea­tures that are non-exis­tent in any exist­ing plane with tech­nol­o­gy that is elec­tric or hybrid.