It might look straight out a sci-fi movie but German urban air taxi startup Volocopter has unveiled its latest design, called the VoloCity.
The Bruchsal-based company is known to have launched the first manned, fully electric and safe vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft in the world. This will be the fourth-generation electrical take-off and landing aircraft by the German Urban Air Mobility developer.
VoloCity: All you need to know
The company claims to have designed the machine to meet the safety standards specified by the European Aviation Safety Agency (SC-VTOL category enhanced) and it incorporates user feedback as well as test data from all previous Volocopter generations. With a calculated range of 35 km and airspeed of 110 km/h, the VoloCity can carry two passengers and is designed to serve as an on-demand inner-city air taxi.
“The VoloCity is our most powerful Volocopter yet. It is rigorously designed to meet the demands of Urban Air Mobility and incorporates all requirements of the SC-VTOL certification standard established by EASA in July 2019. It is a result of all insights we have gathered from our extensive testing programmes over the past years,” says Florian Reuter, CEO of Volocopter. “With the VoloCity we will open the first commercial routes and bring Urban Air Mobility to life.”
Further, the air machine is propelled by 18 rotors and has a low noise signature for operations in urban areas. Volocopter said that the VoloCity incorporates changes from over 1,000 test flights conducted on previous Volocopter generations. Changes made include aerodynamically shaped rotor beams to increase flight efficiency and a new stabiliser.
Florian Reuter, CEO of Volocopter said, “The VoloCity is our most powerful Volocopter yet. It is rigorously designed to meet the demands of Urban Air Mobility and incorporates all requirements of the SC-VTOL certification standard established by EASA in July.
Volocopter Terminals
Further the European company also announced that they are developing a network of terminals, dubbed as “VoloPorts” and they’re working on ways to integrate its air taxis into air traffic management systems of cities. The company, which plans to run the aircraft and infrastructure for fleets of Volocopters, is partnering with companies such as Frankfurt Airport operator Fraport to achieve this.
A public test flight is scheduled for Q4 this year in Singapore, where Volocopter will also display the first VoloPort Urban Air Mobility infrastructure prototype together with its partner Skyports.
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