eVTOL Archives - Zureli

Search for any green Service

Find green products from around the world in one place

Window cleaning

Singapore Safety Glass

Hydrogen and electric aircraft projects backed with fresh £113m of funding

Posted on February 7, 2023 by dishanth

The Department for Transport (DfT) and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) have today (7 February) announced the funding for the projects as part of their collaborative work to decarbonise the aviation sector.

Aviation accounts for around 3% of annual global emissions and, pandemic aside, its absolute emissions and share of annual global emissions have continued to increase over the past two decades. The UK Government has pledged that all airport operations and domestic flights should be net-zero in operation by 2040 and that all international flights should be net-zero by 2050.

For flights, the priority for the near to medium term for the Government is to improve efficiency and to scale the use of alternative fuels, often called Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs). But, in the longer term, the Government sees emerging technologies including hydrogen-powered aircraft and electric aircraft playing a role.

Scaling these emerging technologies is the reason for the provision of the new funding, which is being made through the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI). The funding announced today includes a blend of Government funding and private funding, totalling £113m.

£36.6m of the funding is going to a hydrogen engine project led by Rolls-Royce, developing the integrated powerplant architecture for a liquid hydrogen gas turbine.

A further £14.8m is being allocated to another hydrogen project led by Rolls-Royce, under which experts are developing the combustor element of a liquid hydrogen gas turbine. This project is called Hydrogen Engine System Technologies or HYEST for short.

Rolls-Royce and its consortium partners are also being allocated £31.4m for the liquid hydrogen gas turbine project, developing a liquid hydrogen fuel system for the turbine.

A statement on the Rolls-Royce website reads: “While hydrogen can be used directly as a fuel in a gas turbine, it is likely to start in the shorter haul segments, where the aircraft range is shorter.

“Given volume limitations attached to the storage of hydrogen and the limited power density of fuel cells, for long range, SAF fuelling gas turbines will remain the most likely solution moving forward. Hydrogen will offer options in shorter range segments and has the potential to progress onto larger segments, as the technology is proven and hydrogen fuel becomes more readily available.”

In announcing the new funding for hydrogen aircraft, the DfT and BEIS hailed their previous support of ZeroAvia, which completed the maiden flight of its largest hydrogen fuel cell aircraft to date last month. The 19-seater aircraft completed a ten-minute test flight from Cotswold Airport on 19 January.

Electric aircraft

Also receiving funding today is Vertical Aerospace, which is developing a prototype propulsion battery for electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. The Government has today announced £30.8m of funding.

Vertical Aerospace celebrated “wheels up” for the first time in September 2022, as its electric VX4 aircraft completed its first airborne testing. It is hoping to certify the model by 2025, enabling commercial flights of a pilot and up to four passengers. It is aiming for 100 miles of range and cruise speeds of 150mph.

As of September 2022, more than 1,400 conditional pre-orders for the aircraft had been placed. Clients include Virgin Atlantic, American Airlines, Japan Air and Air Asia.

The UK Government has been funding a range of projects in the eVTOL and drone space in recent years. Last April, Urban Air-Port opened what it claimed was the first fully operational eVTOL hub for a trial in Coventry with Government support. Aside from Urban Air-Port, the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund provided funding to more than 40 organisations through the Future Flight Challenge programme in 2021.

Business Secretary Grant Shapps said: “As the whole world moves to greener forms of aviation, there is a massive opportunity for the UK’s aerospace industry to secure clean, green jobs and growth for decades to come. Together with the companies that share our ambitions, we are determined to seize this moment.”

Jet Zero: New steps, old controversies

As well as announcing the new funding today, the Government is opening the latest round of consultations on its Jet Zero Strategy. This time, it is seeking evidence on the best way to decarbonise airport operations in line with net-zero by 2040.

The announcements have been timed to coincide with the next meeting of the Jet Zero Council at Boeing’s offices in London. The Council was set up to help shape the Strategy and facilitate its delivery.

Many green groups have previously accused the Government of letting the aviation industry lead the strategy based on what is financially beneficial to them, rather than what is recommended by climate scientists.

The UK Government’s own advisory body, the Climate Change Committee, has recommended a cap on passenger number growth for the UK to deliver its 2050 net-zero goal and interim carbon budgets. Yet Bristol Airport’s expansion has been permitted and, despite being ruled unlawful in the Court of Appeal, the Heathrow expansion is now pressing ahead. Shapps has supported Heathrow in this decision.

The Government’s approach is, instead, technology-based. It argues that it does not need to cap growth if new technologies scale on time and deliver the stated emissions savings. Today, once again, Shapps is using the rhetoric of “guilt-free” flying and of “not clipping the sector’s wings”.

Source edie

Meet Jetson One: The eVTOL Aircraft You Build Yourself

Posted on November 1, 2021 by dishanth

Jetson Aerospace, namesake of the 1960s-era Hanna-Barbera cartoon, has unveiled its personal eVTOL aircraft, the Jetson One.

The Jetson One, revealed to the public last week, is a recreational ultralight eVTOL aircraft that doesn’t require a pilot certificate to fly. Pre-orders have already begun and it will only set you back $92,000, with some assembly required.

Upon delivery during summer of next year, the small eVTOL will arrive 50 percent assembled. The frame comes in one piece while the batteries and cables are up to you—with detailed instructions, of course.

“If you get the Jetson at lunchtime, you’re ready to fly by dinner.”

– —Peter Ternström, Jetson president and co-founder

He talked about the inspiration for the Jetson One.

“I wanted to have a little sports car for the sky,” Ternström said. “It has always been my dream since just a kid and finally now, the technology is available.”

The 190 lb. aircraft, powered by Tesla battery cells, only lasts about 20 minutes in the air. But the short battery life is of no concern to Ternström, however, as that’s not what Jetson is aiming for.

“The scope of the project is not to solve big issues like urban mobility or air taxis or something like that,” he said. “The Jetson is all about having fun.”

Think of the Jetson One as a Jet Ski—something you take out for a joyride, but can’t ride to work.

“It’s a profoundly ecstatic experience to fly this thing because it’s completely vibration-free,” Ternstöm said. “And it makes a buzzing noise like something from ‘Star Wars.’”

Just like vehicles you would find in “Star Wars,” the Jetson One comes packed with amazing technology. The bottom of the aircraft comes equipped with a LIDAR sensor, with software that limits how fast you can travel depending on your surroundings. Safety features include ballistic parachutes and zero-input hovering—just let go of the throttle and joystick and you’ll come to a peaceful stop mid-air.

According to Ternström, the Jetson One is designed to allow anyone to climb in and fly without the need for piloting experience. The eVTOL’s software also includes a “virtual cushion.” When landing, the aircraft slows down your descent to mitigate hard landings.

While you may not need a pilot certificate to fly the Jetson One, you may need one to purchase it. Ternström said that he wants the first customers to “know what they’re doing.”

“I am not going to sell it to anyone. Whether or not they like it or not, the first 30 people to receive their Jetson, they are going to be ambassadors for the brand because the level of attention they’re going to get with their flying device is going to be astronomical,” he said. “That’s why I’m selecting people.”

Still, if you manage to get inside one, no training will be required. The Jetson One, in the U.S., will be classified as an ultralight vehicle that will not be required to attain any airworthiness certifications.

“It offers them some flexibility, it offers them also some restrictions that aren’t part of the usual aircraft world,” said Dick Knapinski, director of communications at EAA.

Due to its classification, the Jetson One will not be permitted to fly in populated areas or controlled airspace.

Knapinski believes there are three things that stand in the way of a successful eVTOL aircraft: the engineering, the regulatory process, and consumer acceptance.

“It appears the Jetson people have got a lot of the engineering down,” he said.

As for regulatory obstacles, Knapinski says technology oftentimes moves faster than regulations. It will take time for the Jetson One to deliver and to find its place within FAA certifications.

Finally, consumer acceptance is often the determining factor for any emerging technology.

“They can have the best innovation in the world. If they don’t sell many of them, they’re not going to be successful,” he said.

Knapinski hopes to see the Jetson One in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in the near future.

Source Flying Mag

Electric flying taxis could transform air travel by 2024

Posted on June 21, 2021 by dishanth

Flying taxis to help you skip a morning traffic jam? Sounds like a thing of the future, but the future might be closer than you think.

With new backing from American Airlines, Virgin Atlantic and Microsoft, UK electric aircraft manufacturer Vertical Aerospace is innovating to make environmentally-friendly, accessible urban air travel a reality.

The startup created a zero-emissions vertical takeoff aircraft called the VA-X4 that can travel over 200 miles per hour and be “near-silent” in flight, the company said, CNN reported. A prototype of the electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) with a range of over 100 miles is currently in production and has its first test flight planned for later this year.

“The X4 is going to be 100 times quieter than a helicopter, it’s going to be zero-carbon, it’s going to be a fraction of the cost. Most important of all, it’s going to be 100 times safer, so this is going to open up urban air mobility to whole new range of passengers,” founder and CEO Stephen Fitzpatrick said in a statement.

The company’s mission to make air travel personal, on-demand and carbon-free eVTOLs like the X4 has the potential to transform both short, on-demand travel within cities that is currently accomplished via taxis and longer, medium-haul regional travel, Fitzpatrick told Yahoo! Finance. He estimated that a trip from downtown Los Angeles to LAX or from JFK International Airport to Manhattan would last only 12 minutes and cost roughly $40. Partners are already discussing commercial flight potentials out of large airports such as London Heathrow and Gatwick.

Rolls-Royce, the leading supplier of all-electric and hybrid-electric power and propulsion systems for aviation, will provide the electric engines. Honeywell, a leader in avionics and flight control systems, developed customized, state-of-the-art technology in the new flight vehicles.

The VA-X4 prototype is electric and aerodynamic, which allows it to use far less energy than an airplane or a helicopter. Vertical Aerospace

According to CNN, Fitzpatrick also founded Ovo Group, which owns the UK’s second-biggest energy retailer. The energy transition from fossil fuels to zero-carbon energy supplies is the “biggest challenge facing humanity today,” the energy-tech entrepeneur said in a statement. At scale, the synergy of his two companies may actually help reduce the negative environmental impact of flying, which currently rates as one of the most detrimental activities for air quality and the climate.

“On an individual level, there is no other human activity that emits as much over such a short period of time as aviation, because it is so energy-intensive,” said Stefan Gössling, co-editor of the book Climate Change and Aviation: Issues, Challenges and Solutions.

BBC estimated that aviation is responsible for around 2.4 percent of global carbon emissions and around 5 percent of global warming, due to nitrous oxides, water vapor, particulates and other airplane emissions that also have a warming effect. Other estimates place this figure between five and nine percent.

The relatively “small” aviation industry and an even smaller portion of the world that flies has been accused of having a disproportionately large, negative impact on the climate crisis. Climate justice advocates note that the flying populations are not the ones who will suffer the most from the climate crisis. These are some of the issues that Vertical Aerospace hopes to tackle.

“I love travelling. I love flying to new places. It cannot be that the way we’re going to solve climate change is by asking everybody to do less, to travel less, to turn back time and forgo some of the advantages that technology has brought us,” Fitzpatrick said. “I think that when people start to understand just how much better these vehicles are than what we have today, it’s going to completely change how people think about flying through the skies.”

“If we focus on finding the solutions, this will drive us towards the electrification of flight,” he added. “This is the most exciting time in aviation for almost a century. Electrification will transform flying in the 21st century in the same way the jet engine did 70 years ago,” he told CNN.

Each aircraft is worth as much as $4 billion, and Vertical Aerospace already has pre-orders for up to 1,000 VA-X4s, CNN reported. 250 of those will go to American Airlines, with an option for an additional 100. Virgin Atlantic has a pre-order option for up to 150, and Dublin-based aircraft leasing company Avolon has pre-orders and options for 500 of the new-age taxis.

“Our order with Vertical will… accelerate the inevitable commercial roll-out of zero emissions aircraft,” CEO of Avolon Dómhnal Slattery said in the press release. “Before the end of this decade, we expect zero emission urban air mobility, enabled by eVTOLs, to play an increasingly important role in the global commercial aviation market.”

The United Kingdom is already a global leader in aerospace innovation, Fitzpatrick noted. Unrelated blimp prototypes in the UK are similarly aiming to make air travel more environmentally-friendly and accessible.

“We’re doing more than just developing an aircraft, we’re actually creating an industry together,” Mike Madsen, president and CEO of Honeywell Aerospace said in the statement.

According to Yahoo! Finance, Vertical Aerospace has secured several key partnerships and plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange after a merger with Broadstone Acquisition Corp, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), later this year. The latter was attracted to Vertical’s highly commercial approach and clear route to market, the joint press release noted.

Hugh Osmond, chairman of Broadstone, said, “Transportation is one of the next big sectors of the global economy to be disrupted at scale. Vertical has a clear commercial plan to challenge short-haul air travel, and to create new markets where neither cars nor public transport can cope with demand.”

According to CNN, Vertical believes the X4 will secure the same level of certification from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency as large commercial airliners, allowing production at scale. Commercial operations are slated to begin in 2024.

“This is probably the first commercial aircraft that most people will fly on that will have a zero carbon footprint, Fitzpatrick said. “We’re going to look back at a time when we didn’t have these vehicles flying over our skies. I think in five or six years’ time, we’ll be looking back thinking, ‘I can’t believe we didn’t have this.'”

By Tiffany Duong

Source Eco Watch