Airborne: Reborn / Volume XXII / February 24th 2021
In the air mobility world this week we’re ‘back to SPAC’ in America, one German air taxi manufacturer’s bound for China, whilst another’s inked an aerostructures contract in Spain, there’s an eVTOL acquisition in Canada and we get a peek inside a Japanese ‘flying car’ research facility.
NASA are on the search for megawatt-scale powertrains, a hybrid leader gets snapped up, Scandis commit to another cool $100m of SAF and Heathrow wants to go ‘full zero’.
Meanwhile drones delivered Thai food in Ireland, Covid-19 essentials in Scotland, security in Belgium and a world record for the UN in Somalia. A detect-and-avoid grant was awarded in Europe, a UTM RFI opened in NYC and an autonomous French system was granted approval for operations in Denmark.
In space an unproven rocket scooped another launch contract, a Chinese car company announced a satellite factory and an other-worldly helicopter appears to be in good health.
With all that and more - it's Airborne: Reborn XXII.
Charles Osborne - Founder
Sam Chandra - Asia-Pacific Lead, Aviation
Joby Aviation are going public courtesy of LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman’s Reinvent Technology Partners (RTP) SPAC. Other investors include Baupost Group, BlackRock, Fidelity Management & Research LLC and Baillie Gifford. The deal values Joby at $6.6 billion and delivers a $1.6 billion financial runway for the company. Not only do they have the sector’s most credible pathway to certification but they also become first to pass the magic $1 billion funding milestone, considered by some to be the minimum amount required to bring a novel eVTOL to market (via Joby):
Aerofugia - a UAV company owned by Chinese automotive manufacturer Geely - have announced a joint venture with Volocopter (Geely are investors). The partnership is the latest in a string of recently announced automotive <> eVTOL tie-ups, and could see extensive manufacturing capacity unlocked for Volocopter in Chengdu (via Xin Gou - @chinesflyer):
Meanwhile, Lilium inked another supply agreement with an aerospace major, partnering with Spain’s Aciturri on build of the Lilium Jet’s fuselage. Aciturri already manufacture major airframe components for Airbus, Boeing and Embraer (via Lilium, with comments from another Airbus alum, Chief Product Officer Yves Yemsi).
Consolidation continues as Canadian hybrid VTOL maker Horizon Aircraft are to be acquired by Astro Aerospace. Part of Astro’s motivation is to add the Cavorite X5 to their lineup, which features a patented fan-in-wing design (via FlightGlobal):
In their latest video SHIFT get an inside look at the ‘secret’ research centre for Japan’s flying car company Skydrive. The single-seat prototype currently has an endurance of just 3-5 minutes. A two seater (with longer endurance) is expected to make an appearance in the near future (via SHIFT).
After Wolfpack’s scathing report framing eHang as a ‘stock promotion’ scam last week, the company have put forward further evidence in an attempt to refute the short-sellers claims (via eHang).
⛽️ HYBRID-ELECTRIC 🔌
Surf Air Mobility (a subscription based short-haul travel platform) fresh with a promise of cash from GEM, have acquired Californian hybrid-electric powertrain startup Ampaire. They see the cost advantage of hybrid-electric as a way to open up previously non-viable route opportunities in the sub-500 mile market (Via Aviation Week, Bloomberg).
🔋 BATTERY-ELECTRIC ⚡️
NASA opened a new request for proposals for Electrified Aircraft Propulsion (EAP) technologies the agency can use on ground and flight demonstrations of megawatt-class powertrain systems. Deadline is April 30th (via Engadget).
🌱 SUSTAINABLE AVIATION FUEL 🛢
Scandinavian Airlines Systems (SAS) increased their commitment to buy SAF from Gevo Inc by 5 million gallons / 19 million litres - in a deal worth $100m USD (via Canadian Biomass, ProActive).
✈️ OTHER SUSTAINABLE AVIATION NEWS 🌱
Heathrow Airport will now get a slice of the UK’s Future Flight Challenge funding pie after successfully pitching two very different projects centred on zero carbon domestic flights (via Airport Business).
🦠 COVID-19 😷
Skyports and Swoop Aero have commenced a three month drone delivery trial that will operate between medical facilities in Scotland for the NHS, in a project jointly funded by the UK and European Space Agencies (via Skyports).
🚁 DRONE DELIVERY 📦
Manna Aero have expanded their drone delivery operations in Galway, Ireland to include orders from European takeaway behemoth Just Eat - users can now order Thai takeaway in addition to staples that were already available from grocery giant Tesco’s store in Oranmore (via Drone DJ).
A UN operation in Somalia set a new world record for the longest BVLOS drone flight - with a 22km roundtrip delivery, which has been repeated several times since. The flight was part of a now regular dispatch service provided by Plymouth Rock Technologies (via INN).
🎮 BVLOS 🔭
The EU awarded SAAB a $26 million grant to work on detect-and-avoid technologies. Starting with their military unmanned platform the tech is expected to be tested across Airbus and General Atomics systems with wide ranging civilian applications in the future (via DroneDJ).
An RFI has been opened by New York’s UAS Test Site Organization, NUAIR. The market availability of UTM platforms to support operations in the New York flight corridor and beyond is the focus, with proposals due by March 15th (via DroneLife).
Azur Drones have been granted ‘beyond-visual-line-of-sight’ approval for oil and gas inspection operations in Denmark, where they will deploy their Skeyetech solution (via DroneLife).
The ‘Droneport’ disused-airport-come-industry-hub in Belgium may be the first to see BVLOS go live in the country. Using a system developed by Airobot, they hope that security operations may commence in Q1 ‘21 (via Inside Unmanned Systems)
🔍 INSPECTION 📏
Audi are using drones to autonomously map and geotag their vast inventory of parked cars, using RFID, to improve supply flow (via GIM, Gareth Whatmore):
Aerial computer vision specialists Edgybees raised $9.5 million in a Series A round led by Seraphim Capital. New investors Refinery Ventures, LG Technology Ventures and Kodem Growth also joined the fold (via TechCrunch).
Japan’s Terra Drone secured $14.4 million in a Series A round led by INPEX. 2020 saw the company (that offers airframes, integrated platforms and UTM systems) bring in $20 million in revenue (via Directions Magazine).
🚀 LAUNCH 🌎
Firefly’s as yet unflown Alpha rocket has been selected to launch the General Atomics Orbital Test Bed spacecraft (via SpaceNews).
🛰 SPACE INFRASTRUCTURE 🌉
Chinese car company Geely have been given the green light to commence production of satellites at their Taizhou facility. They hope to ramp up to production of 500 units annually, the initial use case for the constellation being proprietary connectivity for the company’s various mobility offerings (via Andrew Jones, Geely):
🪐 SPACE EXPLORATION 🧭
NASA’s ‘Ingenuity’ Mars helicopter sent a couple of healthy status updates…stay posted for first flight within a month. The news comes just days after a successful autonomous landing of the Perseverance rover, as shown in this truly stunning footage (via Insider & NASA):
🌎 IN OTHER NEWS 🛠
Rumours are spreading that FedEx and Sikorsky have been test flying a single pilot ATR-42 in an effort to further their autonomy program. Nothing has been announced by either company. If confirmed it would mark the largest aircraft to trial single pilot operations to date (via AVweb).
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