Prior to raising $100 million in new capital, China's AutoFlight was mainly focused on developing cargo-carrying, autonomous eVTOLs with payloads of between 20 and 100 kg. However, its focus appears to be shifting to passenger-carrying aircraft, such as the V1500M, which it flew as a proof-of-concept model for the first time in October.

Thales and Diehl Aerospace will combine their respective primary and secondary flight control computers in a way that complies with the EASA special conditions under which the CityAirbus NextGen is to be certified. The European companies will receive funding from the French and German governments for the project, which marks the first of several key system supply partnerships that Airbus will establish for the eVTOL aircraft's development work.

For many companies in the urban air mobility new wave, designing and building eVTOL aircraft is just the start. During a seminar this week, leaders from Joby, Archer, and United Airlines sought to demystify the buzzwords and business school theory behind their plans to transform the way people move around in a way that is more economically and environmentally sustainable.

A recent Joby briefing on progress with its plans to bring its eVTOL aircraft into commercial service in 2024 provided useful insights into what the process entails and why changes to rules covering the certification of general aviation aircraft are so significant. Beyond type certification, the company is also working to be approved as a commercial aircraft operator under Part 135 rules and is preparing to hire and train pilots.

Eve's four-passenger eVTOL aircraft will be brought to market under the name Eve-Senna in an announcement made close to the first anniversary of Embraer founding the company as its urban air mobility subsidiary. The company also has a new partnership with business aviation services group Jetex.

Kakao, which has 30 million registered users for its mobility app, wants to add eVTOL air taxi services to its portfolio in South Korea. With government backing, the country is one of several prospective early adopters of urban air mobility in Asia, and one of several locations where Volocopter has publicly demonstrated its aircraft.

Intended for personal mobility on medium-distance trips, the Tensor 600X uses Fraundorfer’s R01 high-performance rotor system, which features a new generation of autorotation rotors developed with computer simulation.

The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale is assessing Rolls-Royce’s application to have three new speed records officially recognized for flights made in its Spirit of Innovation technology demonstrator, which the aircraft engines group claims is now the world’s fastest all-electric aircraft.

On November 16, the company says, the converted NXT Next kitplane reached a speed of 345.4 mph over a three-km distance, beating the previous top speed of just 132 mph set in 2017 by France’s Jean Luc Soullier in an Extra 330LE aircraft powered by an electric motor developed by Siemens. In subsequent flights at the UK Ministry of Defence’s Boscombe Down research facility, the Spirit of Innovation reached a speed of 330 mph over a 15-km distance, which was 182 mph faster than the previous record, and also set a new record for climbing to an altitude of 3,000 meters (9,843 feet) in 202 seconds (60 seconds faster than the existing record). 

In one of the flights, Rolls-Royce says, the aircraft achieved a maximum speed of 387.4 mph, and it is on this basis that it is claiming the world’s-fastest-electric-aircraft record. By way of comparison, this is slightly higher than the top speeds of high-performance single-turboprop aircraft like Daher-Socata’s TBM 900 and Epic’s E1000 GX, both of which can reach around 380 mph.

The Spirit of Innovation was developed by the Accelerating the Electrification of Flight (ACCEL) team led by Rolls-Royce, and benefitted from some government funding. The aircraft was converted to use a 400-kW (500+ hp) electric propulsion system developed jointly by the aero-engines group with battery specialist Electroflight and lightweight motor and controller manufacturer Yasa.

Volocopter has been working on its plans to develop eVTOL aircraft and establish air taxi networks in urban areas since 2011, and now aims to start operating the two-seat VoloCity model from 2024. This will be followed by the larger, longer-range VoloConnect vehicle.