One of many main boundaries to the adoption of superior air mobility expertise is public notion. Volocopter continues to display its eVTOLS around the globe, profitable over hearts and minds of the following era.
by DRONELIFE Employees Author Ian J. McNabb
German superior air mobility firm Volocopter just lately introduced profitable crewed missions in Osaka and Amagasaki. The weeklong suite of testing is to organize the crew, communications programs, and testing procedures for a showcase of their eVTOL air taxi, the VoloCity, on the 2025 World EXPO hosted in Osaka, Japan. Designed each to organize the eVTOLs for the occasion and showcase the expertise to locals, an array of native officers and onlookers seemed on on the ultimate check flight occasion hosted by the Sumitomo Company, Volocopter’s native strategic accomplice and investor. As well as, greater than 200 native college students attended a Q&A with Osaka’s governor and mayor, together with Volocopter’s Managing Director Christian Bauer and Chief Pilot Paul Stone.
The checks have been accomplished on the Osaka heliport, positioned close to the deliberate EXPO pavilion web site on Osaka Bay. Of their press launch, Volocopter highlighted the significance of native testing earlier than the occasion in an effort to start collaboration with regulators just like the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau, native air visitors controllers and first responders, together with infrastructure house owners, all of whom are key to the success of future testing and demonstration efforts.
Hirofumi Yoshimura, Governor of Osaka Prefecture, mentioned: “I’m very glad that I witnessed Volocopter’s check flight up shut alongside a whole lot of excited college students and so near the positioning of the 2025 EXPO. The 2X didn’t disappoint, with a secure and extremely quiet flight. I’ve nice expectations for eVTOLs, and with the assistance of Hyogo and different neighboring prefectures, we are going to push ahead to make the EXPO successful to help the way forward for the trade past 2025”.
“Seeing the youngsters’s faces mild up when the Volocopter took to the air was absolutely the spotlight of the day,” mentioned Christian Bauer, Managing Director of Volocopter. “As a novel expertise, public consciousness of eVTOLs and the creation of the UAM ecosystem are the place we have to focus for Japan. Volocopter and companions are getting ready early for the 2025 Expo to have the superior know-how to function our eVTOLs seamlessly when the time comes”.
Earlier within the week, the crewed Volocopter 2X additionally carried out plane behavioral testing with the New Vitality and Industrial Expertise Growth Group (NEDO), a nationwide growth and analysis middle. Funding was offered by Osaka Prefecture, Osaka Metropolis, Hyogo Prefecture, and NEDO, with additional help from its sponsors resembling Sekisui Chemical Firm, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance coverage Firm, Kintetsu Group Holdings, and Schenker-Seino Firm.
Different current tasks from Volocopter embrace air taxi testing in Downtown Manhattan, a partnership with an emergency medical companies supplier in Germany, and efforts to offer air taxi companies in the course of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Extra data on VoloCopter’s suite of eVTOLs is accessible right here.
Ian McNabb is a employees author based mostly in Boston, MA. His pursuits embrace geopolitics, rising applied sciences, environmental sustainability, and Boston Faculty sports activities.
