transportation

The Great Rebalancing: Travel spending shifts back to experiences over things. Report

by

  The desire to travel is strong, and consumer and commercial demand for air travel, measured by flight bookings, accelerated meaningfully in early 2022. Could this be the start of travel’s long-awaited recovery? Cruises, buses and trains see strong spending rebound in 2022 as Covid restrictions loosen. Mastercard Economics Institute: Pent-up demand drives global leisure … Read more

Sustainable flight mobility solutions: eVTOL developer Volocopter unveiled VoloConnect

by

 

@Volocopter VoloConnect

EBACE Connect 2021 novelties: Volocopter unveiled its newest aircraft capable to travel longer distances.
Volocopter’s new urban air mobility aircraft is designed for connecting suburbs to cities.

Volocopter, the pioneer of urban air mobility (UAM), unveiled its newest aircraft, VoloConnect, at EBACE Connect 2021.

This electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL) is designed to connect suburbs to cities and complements ­the company’s existing family of aircraft for the intra-city mission. VoloConnect’s distinctive hybrid lift
and push design is expected to achieve certification within the next 5 years.

 

VoloConnect carries on Volocopter’s track record of developing high-tech, electric aircraft for the urban mission.

VoloConnect uses a hybrid lift and push design to transport up to four passengers electrically on routes of 100 km at
a speed of 180 km/h, with a top speed of ~250 km/h. The compact aircraft layout, necessary for urban missions, is
naturally stable and highly efficient during forward flight while maintaining a low stall speed. Volocopter’s Munich-
based team of experts, led by Chief Engineer Sebastian Mores, have been working on the aircraft for over two
years and filed several patents for its technology. They are already flying multiple scaled prototypes of VoloConnect
and are quickly progressing towards testing full scale prototypes.

@Volocopter

With the capacity to travel longer distances, VoloConnect joins Volocopter’s aircraft family and extends the company’s UAM ecosystem coverage to the suburbs. The new aircraft will be seamlessly integrated into Volocopter’s existing portfolio of urban air mobility ecosystem solutions: VoloDrone, VoloCity, VoloPort, and the digital platform, VoloIQ.

“VoloConnect embodies the next dimension of our mission to offer affordable, efficient, and sustainable flight mobility solutions for cities around the globe. Leveraging customer insights from our existing VoloCity and VoloDrone, VoloConnect’s capacity to support longer missions and higher payloads serves another strong growing market demand,” says Florian Reuter, Volocopter CEO. “We are confident that this aircraft family, and the years of experience and leading innovation on which it’s founded, will pioneer the way for electric UAM services to launch commercially and internationally.”

Volocopter takes a holistic approach to UAM by developing a full ecosystem that connects the necessary components to offer electric flight in cities. This ecosystem includes partnerships with global leaders such as Aéroports de Paris, Microsoft Azure, Lufthansa Industry Solutions, and many more. Additionally, Volocopter is the only eVTOL developer with a product portfolio of multicopter and fixed wing designs that can be used for passenger and cargo transportation.

@Volocopter VoloConnect

Cavorite X5 is one of the best looking eVTOLs in development

by

 

@Horizon Aircraft Cavorite X5 hybrid eVTOL

Vertical take-off and landing for short runway or urban landing situations.

Within 2 years, the Cavorite X5 hybrid eVTOL prototype by Canadian startup Horizon Aircraft will be flying and making history. Using intelligent design principles to reduce technical risk, as well as integrating sub-systems already extensively tested, the Cavorite X5 project is on track, says Horizon Aircraft.

Horizon Aircraft Cavorite X5 hybrid eVTOL features a hybrid-electric powertrain and transformer-like wings. But this gorgeous prototype is not only beautiful, it has also an impressive flying range.

@Horizon Aircraft Cavorite X5 hybrid eVTOL

With advances in both electric motor and battery technology, available power densities are now unlocking the future for a cleaner aerospace industry. A flying 1:6 scale test prototype with gull-wing doors is currently in development at Horizon Aircraft, while the full-scale prototype design is 40% complete. The company is focused on detailed integration of hybrid electric power system and the supply chain for components.

Powered by an advanced electric motor coupled with a high efficiency gas engine, and designed around system redundancy and safety, the X5 is the future of regional and urban transportation.

With a 500 km range and a patent-pending fan-in-wing design, Cavorite X5 hybrid eVTOL flyes 350 km/h and has 5 passenger capacity. Lose one lift fan? No problem. Experience a failure with the main drive motor in flight? You have a built-in backup. The range-extender motor will carry you to safety.

@Horizon Aircraft Cavorite X5 hybrid eVTOL
@Horizon Aircraft Cavorite X5 hybrid eVTOL
@Horizon Aircraft Cavorite X5 hybrid eVTOL

Hypersonic aircraft startup Hermeus is building the fastest aircraft in the world

by

 

 

Hypersonic aircraft startup Hermeus is well positioned to disrupt the hypersonics industry. The aviation startup will develop a plane that will travel at five times the speed of sound.

hermeus supersonic aircraft-
hermeus supersonic aircraft; @hermeus.com/

Hermeus, a supersonic commercial jet travel company, wants to radically increase the speed of travel over long distances. Hermeus is building the fastest aircraft in the world. Alongside Boom Supersonic and Boeing HorizonX, Hermeus promises to make supersonic commercial jets a reality.

Atlanta-based Hypersonic Aircraft Startup Hermeus is a startup increasing the speed of air transportation by developing hypersonic aircraft. The vision of the company is to connect the world’s cities significantly faster than ever before.

The aerospace technology company founded in 2018 is developing aircraft capable of flight in excess of Mach 5 – over 3,000 miles per hour. At Mach 5, flight times from New York to London will be reduced from 7 hours to 90 minutes. The aircraft will be capable of a range of 4,600 miles at a cruising speed of 3,300 miles per hour. The product’s design enables it to operate with minimal changes to current aviation infrastructure. Boom Supersonic’s jet that will be capable of traveling at speeds of Mach 2.2.

This month Hermeus announced a Seed round investment. The round was led by Khosla Ventures, with additional participation from private investors. The financing will further the development and test of Hermeus’ hypersonic propulsion system.

“Hermeus is developing an aircraft that not only improves the aviation experience with very reduced flight times but also has the potential to have a great societal and economic impact,” said Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures.

“We’ve set out on a journey to revolutionize the global transportation infrastructure, bringing it from the equivalent of dial- up into the broadband era, by radically increasing the speed of travel over long distances.” said co-founder and CEO AJ Piplica. “We’re excited to work with Khosla Ventures to turn this vision into reality.”

The Hermeus founders consist of alumni from SpaceX and Blue Origin. Additionally, all four worked together at Generation Orbit, where AJ Piplica served as CEO and Glenn Case, Mike Smayda, and Skyler Shuford served as technical directors. While there, they led the development of the X-60A, a hypersonic rocket-plane and the Air Force’s newest X-Plane.

hermeus supersonic aircraft
hermeus supersonic aircraft; @hermeus.com/

Life in 2030: Hyperloop rail and fully connected smart home systems to become the norm. Survey

by

  Life in 2030: Consumers expect massive change in every aspect of their lives. . An insight into consumer expectations for future experiences in home, transportation, health and retail. Survey. Dassault Systèmes revealed that consumers expect that cities in 2030 will be filled with technology that improves overall quality of life, delivers socially-conscious benefits and … Read more

Is this the future of air travel? Zoom on: Airlander 10

by

Pioneering British luxury travel experts, Henry Cookson Adventures, are setting a new world first, taking the Airlander, the world’s largest aircraft, on its maiden international flight. In 2018, Henry Cookson Adventures (HCA) will become the first private excursion company to trial Airlander 10, anticipating her arrival to revolutionise ultra-high-end travel. Welcome to the transport of … Read more