Blade Urban Air Mobility intends to fund the purchase of 20 of Beta's Alia aircraft through third-party financing supported by its operating partners. The first of the all-electric aircraft are due to be delivered in 2024, with Blade planning to put them into commercial services out of its existing private terminals in 2025, likely starting in the New York City area.

Amazilia Aerospace, the German subsidiary of Chinese freight delivery group SF Express, will provide the flight control and vehicle management systems for a hybrid-electric cargo drone to be designed and built by Pipistrel. The model is based on the Nuuva V300 aircraft that Pipistrel already has under development.

According to Dan Schwinn, president and CEO of Florida-based avionics group Avidyne, developers of electric aircraft face unique challenges regarding factors such as motor and battery instrumentation and management. He believes his company can bring solutions to the table, and it is already partnered with two pioneers, Beta Technologies and VoltAero.

An examination of the advanced air mobility sector by capital market analyst PitchBook provides an insightful reassessment of the gold-rush market conditions surrounding plans for air taxi services using eVTOL aircraft. Its bottom line is that only the best-funded ventures are likely to inherit the sector's potential and that market projections for revenue streams reflect some rather big, and potentially hostage-to-fortune, assumptions.

Calling the collaboration part of the "next evolution of private aircraft expansion," Bell said the partnership will leverage the large customer base and Avianis flight scheduling software at Wheels Up and Bell’s VTOL aircraft—likely Bell 429 helicopters in the near term and Nexus eVTOLs in the longer term—to provide intra-urban travel from/to city centers using existing airports and helipads.

MagniX is working to certify its Magni500 electric motor so that it can provide quieter and more environmentally friendly propulsion for existing aircraft, including the DHC-2 Beaver and the Cessna Grand Caravan. The company expects to have supplemental type certificates in place to convert these types by 2022 and 2023, respectively.

XTI Aircraft is due to close its StartEngine equity crowdfunding campaign on April 30. According to CEO Robert LaBelle, the Denver-based company now has 116 orders for its TriFan 600 eVTOL aircraft, with a gross revenue value of $750 million (implying a unit price of $6.5 million).

This week XTI announced the appointment of James Kromberg as its chief test pilot, bolstering its declared plans to start flying a full-scale prototype of the six-seat model before the end of 2021. Back in 2019, the company was projecting type certification by the end of 2023, but that was before the Covid pandemic and it will be interesting to discover how the program timeline now stands.

XTI has released relatively little information about the hybrid-electric TriFan, which is expected to feature GE Aviation’s new Catalyst engine driving a pair of tilting ducted fans on the wing, and another (for vertical lift) in the rear of the fuselage. With a projected range of up to 1,380 miles and a cruise speed of 345 mph, the company claims it will combine the benefits of a fixed-wing business aircraft and a helicopter. This video, which was posted back in November 2017, appears to offer the most complete picture so far of how the TriFan 600 is designed to operate.

XTI Aircraft is developing a passenger-carrying TriFan 600 eVTOL aircraft and a smaller TriFan 200 freighter that would be operated autonomously.