Urban Aeronautics teams up with Ascent to bring CityHawk eVTOL aircraft to market

eVTOL devel­op­er Urban Aero­nau­tics has joined forces with Sin­ga­pore-based heli­copter char­ter book­ing ser­vice Ascent to accel­er­ate bring­ing its eVTOL air­craft City­Hawk to mar­ket.

The Israeli-based com­pa­ny’s sub­sidiary Metro Sky­ways is cur­rent­ly devel­op­ing the six-seater con­cept, which is pow­ered by both elec­tric and hydro­gen.

The news fol­lows Urban Aero­nau­tics announc­ing a new part­ner­ship with the Boe­ing Com­pa­ny ear­li­er this year and set­ting its sights towards com­muter air taxis, after the suc­cess­ful devel­op­ment of its Cor­morant vehi­cle — an unmanned VTOL air­craft which utilis­es inter­nal lift rotors to fly inside urban or moun­tain­ous ter­rain, where heli­copters are unable to oper­ate.

Dr. Rafi Yoeli, CEO of Urban Aero­nau­tics, said: “As we con­tin­ue to advance on our devel­op­ment and look toward com­mer­cial flights with­in a few years, we are eager to work with Ascent.

“Thanks to its unique oper­a­tional expe­ri­ence, and grow­ing foot­print, we are now able to enrich our air­craft design and com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion approach, based on direct mar­ket insights. With this part­ner­ship, Urban Aero­nau­tics can make an air­craft for the cus­tomer, with the cus­tomer.”

As well as being used as an air taxi, the City­Hawk will also be con­fig­ured for emer­gency response and exec­u­tive trans­porta­tion. The air­craft’s cab­in is 50 per cent larg­er than a con­ven­tion­al heli­copter and when in oper­a­tion, it will have a range of 150km and can reach speeds of up to 270km/h.

Ascent is an urban air mobil­i­ty ser­vice, with a ride-shar­ing plat­form designed to make cities more con­nect­ed, by mov­ing peo­ple seam­less­ly and afford­ably by air using heli­copters today and eVTOLs in the future.

The com­pa­ny oper­ates in the Philip­pines, with flights between more than 15 hubs of activ­i­ty includ­ing inter­na­tion­al air­ports, cen­tral busi­ness dis­tricts, and pop­u­lar leisure des­ti­na­tions.

Lionel Sinai-Sinel­nikoff, Founder and CEO of Ascent, adds: “The part­ner­ship with Urban Aero­nau­tics is a great step for­ward in line with our objec­tive to democ­ra­tise sus­tain­able urban air mobil­i­ty.”