Vertical Aerospace's eVTOL program partners already include Rolls-Royce, GKN Aerospace, Honeywell, Solvay, and Microsoft, and a new agreement will see Leonardo making composite fuselages for its VX4 aircraft. The announcement signals the Italian aerospace and defense group's intention to enter the advanced air mobility sector.

Telecommunications group SK Telecom will support Joby's efforts to establish ride-hailing eVTOL flight services in South Korea as part of the Korean Urban Air Mobility plan, launched by the Asian country's government in 2020. Plans call for Joby’s commercial flights to use SK’s T Map Mobility platform and the UT ride-hailing service that it started in 2021.

Destinus has raised $29 million to support work on twin propulsion systems that will support subsonic, supersonic, and hypersonic flight in an autonomous hyperplane it aims to bring to market by 2027. Initially, the autonomous, "near-space" aircraft will carry cargo but later plans envisage passenger flights at speeds that would allow it to reach anywhere in the world in just one or two hours.

HyPoint says its use of compressed air to cool hydrogen fuel cells means that the technology will deliver three times greater power-to-weight ratios than alternative liquid-cooled systems. As part of its plans to support hydrogen-powered aircraft with partners ZeroAvia and Piasecki, it expects to achieve seven times the energy density of current batteries, and by 2025 specific power capacity could reach 3,000 W/kg, which would support narrowbody airliners.

Under the partnership announced on February 8, electric-propulsion specialist MagniX would collaborate with Desaer on an ATL-100H hybrid variant that would be powered by two magni350 electric-propulsion units and two turboprop engines. The aircraft is mainly intended to serve as a regional airliner in the same class as 19-seaters like the Dornier Do-228.

In a lawsuit due to go to trial in San Francisco in early 2023, Wisk alleges that its former employee Jing Xue misappropriated trade secrets relating to its sixth-generation eVTOL aircraft design and gave these to its rival Archer. But the U.S. Department of Justice has now said it will not prosecute Jing following a joint investigation with the FBI. Wisk and Archer disagree on how this development may impact the civil case.

Building on an October 2020 agreement with NASA, GE Aviation is stepping up the development of a hybrid-electric propulsion system that could be used to retrofit existing aircraft or power new designs. Boeing's Aurora Flight Sciences subsidiary will help to prepare a Saab 340 twin turboprop regional airliner to be used as a flying testbed that will use a pair of GE's CT7-9B engines and a combined electric motor/generator unit with batteries to store electric power.

It's one thing to test new eVTOL aircraft and autonomous vehicles in remote desert areas, but quite another to see how these will perform in more populated environments that are closer to where these modes of transportation will likely earn their livings. The Mobility Innovation Zone at Fort Worth Alliance Airport was conceived by real estate group Hillwood with just this sort of challenge in mind, and it's looking to attract more aviation pioneers to incubate technology there.

2022 will be a significant year for eVTOL aircraft developers looking to meet their ambitious targets for certifying and bringing the new models into commercial service from 2024. The new designs include design and performance characteristics that are significantly different from the aircraft that have come before them, and aviation safety agencies like FAA and EASA will want to be fully satisfied that they meet the highest standards of safety. For an independent perspective on the certification challenges facing the advanced air mobility pioneers, FutureFlight last year spoke with industry expert Sergio Cecutta from SMG consulting to talk us through what the task will entail.

Manta Aircraft is a European startup working on a pair of hybrid-electric VTOL/STOL aircraft under the family name ANN. The two-seat ANN2 and the four-seat ANN4 are expected to offer range of up to 900 km (559 miles) with the initial hybrid propulsion system and could later be switched to all-electric or hydrogen power.