VIDEO: Canadian startup Limosa unveils second version of its LimoConnect eVTOL/eCTOL aircraft

Cana­di­an start­up Limosa has unveiled the newest ver­sion of its eVTOL air­craft, the Limo­Con­nect v2, which aims to be cer­ti­fied and oper­a­tional by Trans­port Cana­da Civ­il Avi­a­tion (TCCA) by 2028.

The com­pa­ny released ini­tial images of its first vision for a sev­en-seater eVTOL/CTOL air­craft back in Feb­ru­ary 2022, and the team attend­ed eVTOL Insights’ first indus­try con­fer­ence in April that year as event spon­sor — where Limosa CEO and founder Hamid Hami­di shared more infor­ma­tion about its design.

And last week­end, Mr Hami­di was present at the Ver­ti­cal Flight Soci­ety’s 17th Annu­al Elec­tric Air­craft Sym­po­sium at Oshkosh to reveal the updat­ed design of the Limo­Con­nect.

He said: “Limo­Con­nect V2 is the cul­mi­na­tion of months of hard work and ded­i­ca­tion. We have tak­en every­thing we learned from the orig­i­nal Limo­Con­nect and incor­po­rat­ed it into this new air­craft. By going back to the roots of air­craft design prin­ci­ples, we have cre­at­ed a vehi­cle that is sim­ple, prac­ti­cal, and will rev­o­lu­tionise urban air mobil­i­ty.”

The updat­ed ver­sion of the Limo­Con­nect fea­tures sev­er­al sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments over the orig­i­nal, includ­ing:

• - A change in the lay­out of the dis­trib­uted elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem (DEP), reduc­ing the num­ber of mov­ing parts and tilt­ing mech­a­nisms by half, which sim­pli­fies and reduces the fail­ure risk of the DEP sys­tem.
• - A redesigned con­trol sur­face sys­tem with large fowler flaps, enabling Limo­Con­nect V2 to per­form con­ven­tion­al take­off and land­ing on very short run­ways.
• - A larg­er inte­ri­or space for pas­sen­gers and car­go, achieved by relo­cat­ing the wings.
• - A more effi­cient propul­sion sys­tem that reduces noise by rotat­ing at low­er rota­tion­al speeds.
• - A new avion­ics sys­tem that pro­vides enhanced safe­ty and sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness.

Locat­ed in Mon­tre­al, one of North Amer­i­ca’s aero­space hubs, the team built and test­ed two small-scale pro­to­types, pro­vid­ing valu­able insights into the fea­si­bil­i­ty of the design.

These expe­ri­ences, com­bined with feed­back from Trans­port Cana­da Civ­il Avi­a­tion (TCCA) and third-par­ty con­sult­ing agen­cies, dozens of sim­u­la­tions, and detailed struc­tur­al design fol­low­ing all cer­ti­fi­ca­tion guide­lines, led the com­pa­ny to focus on a prac­ti­cal and real air­craft design rather than bed­room wall posters.

Limo­Con­nect V2 is sched­uled to begin flight test­ing in 2024, with the com­pa­ny say­ing it expects to receive type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from TCCA in 2028. Once cer­ti­fied, Limo­Con­nect will be avail­able to com­mer­cial and pri­vate cus­tomers.

Hami­di added: “We are thrilled to intro­duce Limo­Con­nect V2 to the mar­ket, pro­pelling us into a new era of urban and region­al air mobil­i­ty. This air­craft has the poten­tial to rev­o­lu­tionise trav­el, and we take immense pride in lead­ing this charge.

“It is the sole SUV-sized vehi­cle in its cat­e­go­ry to offer both con­ven­tion­al take-off and land­ing as well as ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing capa­bil­i­ties. Thanks to its adapt­able inte­ri­or design, Limo­Con­nect is poised to serve var­i­ous mar­ket seg­ments, includ­ing car­go trans­porta­tion, mede­vac appli­ca­tions, air-taxi oper­a­tions, pub­lic secu­ri­ty ser­vices and off­shore appli­ca­tions.

“With unwa­ver­ing sup­port from both the Cana­di­an fed­er­al and Que­bec provin­cial gov­ern­ments, Limosa is in a for­mi­da­ble posi­tion to advance its vision and bring the Limo­Con­nect to com­mer­cial fruition before the end of the decade.”