Actor, director and activist Christopher Reeve said in a 1996 speech, "So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable." This is an appropriate description of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft development over the past decade. When VFS began its engagement with the nascent community of eVTOL developers in 2013, most people considered it impossible. Much progress was made in the subsequent years, but by 2019, the list of "simultaneous miracles" necessary to overcome -including technology development, infrastructure build-out, pilot availability/training and lack of a regulatory framework - made companies' aggressive timelines for urban air mobility (UAM) air taxi operations seem highly improbable (see "Commentary: Capitalizing on the Miraculous eVTOL Gold Rush," Vertiflite, March/ April 2021). In addition, the need for roughly $1B of development funding for each aircraft to reach certification was seen as a fundamental barrier to success.
展开▼
