Staff Editor
Commuting by air taxi took a giant leap forward when Volocopter completed “the first ever public crewed test flight of a fully electrical vertical take-off and landing air taxi” in the United States.
Air Taxi commute in style
The milestone event happened a while ago but public interest has the story circling back around on the interweb. The experimental air taxi was displayed at Air Venture 2021 in Wisconsin.
The Volocopter 2X crewed version completed a 4-minute flight at around 164 feet with a top speed of 18 mph. The final version will do much better than that.
The designers know they can talk until they’re blue in the face about their “lead in certification, low noise emissions, and global partnerships.”
They also know that nobody will pay much attention to their flying taxi concept until they see it flying people around. So, they flew it around.
Long and short range
“Nothing shows just how close we are to launch UAM as a service as does flying an air taxi in front of crowds and inviting people to sit in our aircraft.”
They can’t wait “to bring electric flights to cities around the globe” and they expect to do it soon. They projected two or three years, a year ago.
The company plans two distinct versions for “both long and short distances within cities.” They also have an unmanned cargo craft.
VoloCity and VoloConnect are both an air taxi, while VoloDrone is a “heavy lift drone.” Optimal flight speed is between 62 and 93 mph with a minimum range of 93 miles.
