Plana has revealed a new design for its five-seat hybrid-electric aircraft and is seeking partners to supply all key systems, including propulsion and avionics. As it prepares to launch a Series A funding round to support its plans, the Korean company has announced the signing of a letter of intent with a prospective U.S. launch customer called Ghenus Air.

The advanced air mobility (AAM) industry aims to begin operating thousands of air taxis, delivery drones, and other types of novel aircraft in the U.S. within the next decade. Along with the rise in the number of aircraft flying in our skies, the amount of noise pollution created by the aviation industry is certainly going to increase. In an effort to better understand and reduce aviation noise, the FAA has awarded $19 million in research grants to 14 universities across the nation. Projects that these grant recipients will be working on include developing noise abatement procedures, assessing the impact of noise on the environment and communities, and acoustic modeling of new aircraft emerging from the AAM sector.

In response to an anticipated need for many eVTOL aircraft pilots, Future Aviation Simulation Technologies is working with EvFly and other operators to provide mixed-reality training devices and full-flight simulators. The German company says it already has a demonstration example of its latest equipment but is waiting on air safety regulators to finalize training requirements before it can be deployed.

Volocopter has opened the purpose-built hangar in which it is preparing to start manufacturing its two-seat VoloCity eVTOL vehicle in time for commercial air taxi services to begin in 2024. At the company's Bruchsal headquarters in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, Volocopter is also working on the VoloDrone freighter and a larger, longer-range eVTOL vehicle called the VoloConnect.

As part of the White House’s Investing in America Tour, U.S. First Lady Jill Biden and Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona visited eVTOL aircraft developer Beta Technologies in Vermont last week to see how the electric aviation company is prioritizing educational opportunities and workforce development to create jobs in the clean-energy industry.

H2Fly has tested the process through which the cryogenic hydrogen storage system developed by its partner Air Liquide is filled with the liquid hydrogen that will power its HY4 technology demonstrator aircraft. The work is part of the European Union's Project Heaven to establish whether hydrogen propulsion could eventually be viable for medium- and long-haul commercial flights.

Newly released video from Horizon Aircraft shows the company’s half-scale Cavorite X5 eVTOL technology demonstrator conducting its first transition flight tests at the ACE Climatic Wind Tunnel in Oshawa, Ontario. Horizon Aircraft, which is based in Lindsay, Ontario, conducted the first tethered hover flight tests with the half-scale prototype in January. Now that it has successfully conducted a transition flight test in the wind tunnel, the company plans to begin transition flight tests outdoors later this spring or in the summer.

European aircraft systems specialist Liebherr is supporting Airbus's ZeroE hydrogen airliner program by developing an air supply system for its fuel cells. The study announced this week will support efforts for the development of a technology demonstrator aircraft to establish the most realistic approach to producing commercially viable aircraft for service entry during the 2030s.

Universal Hydrogen has released a video showing how it achieved the first test flight with a Dash 8 regional airliner powered by hydrogen. The company retrofitted a hydrogen fuel cell to one of the aircraft's nacelles and conducted a 15-minute flight on March 2 from Grant County International Airport in Moses Lake, Washington. The testbed aircraft, which has been nicknamed "Lightning McClean," will be used by the Universal Hydrogen team to complete the approval process for the supplemental type certificates under which it intends to convert this and other existing airliners to carbon-free energy with a target of starting commercial flights in 2025.