eVTOL Sector’s Quickening Pace

A number of proceedings at Heli-Expo 2022 in Dallas, Texas point to an accelerating eVTOL market around the globe – with huge implications across the aerospace industry enterprise.

Of relevance to the Civil Aviation Training community are the number of simulation and training industry companies entering into partnerships with eVTOL OEMs and others.

During this week’s expo, NetJets, the largest private aviation company in the world, and FlightSafety International (both Berkshire Hathaway companies) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Lilium N.V., makers of an eVTOL jet, for a proposed strategic partnership. As part of the arrangement, Lilium would also partner with FlightSafety International to provide products and services such as courseware, immersive and mixed-reality training devices and crew training to support Lilium Jet operations. FlightSafety says its proprietary training software will deliver flexible and agile learning solutions needed to support the advance air mobility market.

The Vertical Flight Society announced it is holding the first public event in the US this March 29-31 in Long Beach, California on the use of hydrogen and fuel cells for aviation applications. The notion of hydrogen and fuel cells will disrupt much of the existing aviation enterprise. Of importance to CAT is the huge sea change that will ripple across training organizations, in particular, the impact on the maintenance workforce.

At the OEM level, it was announced this week that Airbus and The Helicopter Company (THC) signed an agreement to continue expanding helicopter activities as well as to introduce Urban Air Mobility (UAM) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This comes as an additional step toward the co-creation of a UAM ecosystem in the Kingdom.

Last September, Airbus unveiled its fully electric eVTOL prototype, CityAirbus NextGen. For its part, Airbus is developing a UAM solution with eVTOLs not only to offer a new mobility service in urban areas and beyond but also as an important step in its quest to reduce emissions in aviation across its product range.

CAT will soon publish a comprehensive view of emerging developments in the eVTOL market.

In addition, eVTOL will be a featured agenda topic for multiple discussions during the World Aviation Training Summit, 3-5 May 2022 in Orlando, Florida.