WASHINGTON: Boeing offered a glance at a futuristic alternative to crowded freeways when its prototype autonomous airtaxi — essentially a flying car with no driver — lifted off the ground for the first time on a test take-off.
“In one year, we have progressed from a conceptual design to a flying prototype,” said Boeing chief technology officer Greg Hyslop, adding that Boeing will leverage its decades of aviation expertise to create an air mobility technology that’s “safe, innovative and responsible.”
Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences, a leading developer of innovative aircraft and autonomous systems that Boeing acquired in 2017, designed the electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. Its first flight took place on Tuesday at Aurora’s headquarters in Manassas, Virginia.
With a range of up to 80.5 km, the air taxi is 9.1 metres long and 8.5 metres wide. Its airframe uses movable propellers and wings to achieve efficient hover and forward flight.
“This is what revolution looks like,” said John Langford, Aurora’s president and chief executive. He said the key to the technology will be autonomy — the aircraft is intended to fly itself, using sensors and artificial intelligence software to avoid obstacles and other flying vehicles as it delivers passengers.
Langford said Boeing’s technology will “make quiet, clean and safe urban air mobility possible.” Other companies are also rushing to develop similar air taxis to open up the urban skies, supplementing the current clogged ribbons of roadway with flight paths criss-crossing the three-dimensional space above our heads.
A year ago in Pendleton, Oregon, European jet maker Airbus completed a similar test take-off of its Vahana autonomous air-taxi prototype at a drone test range, the aircraft
rising 16 feet into the air and then descending safely.
The next step in these flight tests will be much more of an engineering challenge: transitioning from the vertical take-off and hover phase to forward, wing-borne flight. — dpa
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