Beta Technologies has delivered its all-electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida to undergo a series of tests as part of the U.S. Air Force's Agility Prime accelerator program. The Air Force Research Laboratory's AFWERX innovation arm and Beta Technologies plan to commence the test campaign for the Alia eVTOL aircraft on Nov. 7 at Duke Field on Eglin AFB, AFRL said Friday.

More

Joby Aviation will deliver up to nine electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft to the U.S. Air Force and other federal agencies under a $55 million Agility Prime contract extension, bringing the potential contract value to $131 million.  The transportation company said Tuesday that under the award, Joby will turn over two zero operating emissions […] More

Albers Aerospace has made an investment in Lusby, Maryland-based Hop Flyt to help the latter further improve the design, develop and produce military versions of its electrical vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, ExecutiveBiz has learned. Hop Flyt is working on military versions of three unmanned aircraft systems – Squall, Cyclone and Vortex – and Albers […] More

BAE Systems and Embraer will examine the potential defense and security applications of an electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle being manufactured by the latter’s urban air mobility division. Engineers from BAE’s air sector in Lancashire, U.K. will collaborate with the Brazilian company’s Sao Jose dos Campos team on a joint study to determine whether […] More

Joby Aviation has delivered an electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft to the Edwards Air Force Base as part of an Agility Prime contract with the U.S. Air Force. Joby Aviation, the Air Force and NASA will work together to test the eVTOL aircraft in support of the space agency's Advanced Air Mobility campaign. AAM aims to evaluate how to incorporate aircraft like the eVTOL into the national airspace system, NASA said Tuesday.

More

Over the years, there are government contracts awarded by AFWERX. AFWERX has issued contract awards to enable startups and growing enterprises to expand their reach and offerings for the public and private sectors. Below are the top government contracts won by AFWERX and awarded to various enterprises. AFWERX is a program operated by the US Air […] More

Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky subsidiary will build an uncrewed hybrid-electric vertical-take-off-and-landing aircraft prototype in partnership with General Electric’s aerospace business. GE Aerospace will provide a CT7 turboshaft engine, 1 megawatt-class generator and related power electronics for the fully autonomous Hybrid-Electric Demonstrator aircraft and support the HEX project by building on the hybrid electric propulsion platform it […] More

Textron’s Bell subsidiary has selected Sierra Nevada Corp. to help design and develop mission systems for its proposed high-speed vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. Bell was one of the 11 companies selected by the U.S. Air Force in January to further develop aircraft concepts as part of the AFWERX HSVTOL Concept Challenge, a collaborative effort […] More

The U.S. Air Force and Beta Technologies conducted a crewed test flight of an electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, dubbed Alia, on March 9, at the company’s testing facility in Plattsburgh, New York. Alia can transport passengers and cargo and is a fully electric aircraft with zero emissions and can be recharged for less […] More

Mark Skoog, a former principal investigator for autonomy research at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, has joined the board of advisers of electric first responder aircraft developer Jump Aero. Skoog will provide expertise in autonomous aircraft systems to support the development of an electric-powered vertical take-off and landing plane for emergency response missions, Jump Aero […] More

Artificial intelligence technology developer Shield AI has secured funds from the U.S. Air Force’s AFWERX innovation program to integrate autonomy tool into military and commercial aircraft platforms. The Strategic Funding Increase Program award will allow the San Diego-based company to demonstrate the potential of its Hivemind software to support drone swarming and electronic vertical take-off […] More

NASA has started testing an electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft from Joby Aviation as part of the space agency’s Advanced Air Mobility National Campaign to collect data on the vehicle’s performance and acoustic profile to support simulation and modeling of future airspace concepts. Davis Hackenberg, AAM mission integration manager at NASA, said in a […] More