2024 Corporate Aviation Leadership Summit

Japanese helicopter operator Hiratagakuen has partnered with European aerospace manufacturer&nbsp;Airbus to bring advanced air mobility&nbsp;services to Japan’s Kansai region.&nbsp;
The two companies&nbsp;aim to launch a commercial transportation service using the four-seat <a href="https://www.futureflight.aero/aircraft-program/cityairbus-nextgen">CityAirbus NextGen</a> eVTOL aircraft, a project that has already been approved by Japan’s Osaka Prefecture, according to Airbus. The partnership will explore use cases for the CityAirbus NextGen, including emergency medical services, ecotourism, and commercial air transport solutions.&nbsp;
Under their&nbsp;agreement, the two companies are collaborating to create a simulation of ideal flight routes and a concept of operations for eVTOL flight services in the Kansai region, which includes Osaka. A demonstration flight is scheduled to take place there later this year.&nbsp;
For that flight, Hiratagakuen will use one of its H135 helicopters to test new navigation and communication technologies that will enable eVTOLs to safely fly in urban environments while also simulating CityAirbus NextGen’s flight configuration.&nbsp;
“We are very pleased to conduct a demonstration flight in the Osaka-Kansai region with Airbus for the future of mobility, using the latest H135 helicopter,” said Mitsuhiro Hirata, vice president of Hiratagakuen’s aviation operation division. “We have been operating Airbus helicopters for many years and highly appreciate their high safety, performance, operational reliability, and proven after-sales support.
“We are aware that a revolution in air transportation is now approaching in the Osaka area, and we expect CityAirbus NextGen to play a central role in this revolution,” Hirata added.
The CityAirbus NextGen, which Airbus revealed in 2021, is a piloted eVTOL prototype that can carry four passengers up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) while traveling at a cruise speed of 120 km/h (75 mph). Airbus plans to conduct the first test flight of the prototype aircraft in 2023, and the company has said it expects to receive EASA type certification by 2025.

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Airbus has partnered with two German automotive industry players to design the rear structure of its new CityAirbus NextGen eVTOL&nbsp;aircraft. KLK Motorsport and Modell- und Formenbau Blasius Gerg will work together to design, develop, and manufacture an ultra-lightweight rear fuselage for the CityAirbus NextGen air taxi, the company announced last week.
The all-electric <a href="https://www.futureflight.aero/aircraft-program/cityairbus-nextgen">CityAirbus NextGen</a>&nbsp;eVTOL, unveiled by the European aerospace group in September 2021, is a four-passenger, fixed-wing passenger aircraft intended mainly for urban air mobility applications. It features a V-shaped tail with eight sets of electric motors and propellers, boasts a range of 50 miles (80 kilometers), and can reach maximum speeds of up to 75 mph (120 km/h). Although the air taxi will be equipped with an automated flight mode, it will be piloted initially—at least until the urban air mobility market matures, the company has said.
KLK Motorsport and Gerg have worked with Airbus in the past, designing a carbon-fiber canopy for Airbus Helicopters' Rapid and Cost-Efficient Rotorcraft, better known as <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2022-03-07/airbus-racer-pace-2022-first-flight">Racer</a>. Both companies also have experience working on Formula E and Formula One race cars. The team will use that expertise to develop a highly efficient airframe for the CityAirbus NextGen, Airbus officials said.
"The partnership with KLK Motorsport and Gerg will provide CityAirbus NextGen with a fully integrated, ultra-lightweight rear fuselage. Directly interacting with the center fuselage and the wing, the rear structure will leverage both suppliers' expertise in homogeneous design for FormulaE and Formula One vehicles, while complying with the most stringent safety and reliability standards," said Joerg Mueller, head of Urban Air Mobility at Airbus.
KLK Motorsport and Gerg are the latest of several companies to join Airbus in its urban air mobility efforts. Just last month, Airbus announced that it had <a href="https://www.futureflight.aero/news-article/2022-05-10/magicall-supply-electric-motors-cityairbus-nextgen-evtol-aircraft">selected Magicall</a>, a California-based company, to supply the aircraft's electric motors. Kansas-based <a href="https://www.futureflight.aero/news-article/2022-03-10/spirit-aerosystems-will-make-wings-cityairbus-nextgen-evtol-aircraft">Spirit Aerosystems</a> has agreed to develop and manufacture the aircraft's wings, and the European avionics group <a href="https://www.futureflight.aero/news-article/2021-11-18/thales-and-diehl-sign-cityairbus-nextgen-evtol-program-partners">Thales and Diehl</a> will develop the aircraft's flight control computers.&nbsp;
Airbus aims to achieve the first flight of a CityAirbus NextGen prototype in 2023, and the company expects to receive <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/general-aviation/2021-11-15/easa-certification-cityairbus-nextgen-expected-2025">EASA type certification by 2025</a>.

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EASA Certification for CityAirbus NextGen Expected in 2025

Airbus is working on concepts for possible hydrogen-powered airliners that it says could be ready to enter service by 2035. Announcing plans for what the European airframer said will be the world’s first “zero-emissions” commercial aircraft, Airbus on September 21 unveiled three designs being developed under a project designated ZeroE.
According to chief technology officer Grazia Vittadini, Airbus will make a final decision on the hydrogen technology platform in 2024 and ready a technology demonstrator for a first flight during 2025. Its engineering team expects in 2021 to have a hydrogen ground demonstrator ready to help it to address complex technology risks around the ecosystem for hydrogen power, such as the fuel’s volume and cryogenic (low temperature) characteristics.
However, the company added that electric batteries may still prove sufficient to support its plans for developing much smaller all-electric eVTOL aircraft for urban air mobility and other applications. It said it will complete flight testing of its CityAirbus four-seat technology demonstrator through the end of 2020, before deciding on the next steps in its eVTOL plans.
The most novel of the three designs presented to a media briefing on September 21 is a blended wing airframe that Airbus indicated would be able to carry up to 200 passengers on flights of around 2,300 miles. The exceptionally wide fuselage, in which the wing merges with the main section of the aircraft, would provide space for a cabin as well as for hydrogen storage and distribution. The design builds on the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/air-transport/2020-02-11/airbus-unveils-maveric-blended-wing-demonstrator">Maveric</a>&nbsp;model that Airbus has been working on in stealth mode since June 2019.
Airbus also presented a more conventional narrowbody model that would carry between 120 and 200 passengers on sectors of around 2,300 miles. The propulsion system would be based on a pair of modified gas turbine engines powered by liquid hydrogen that would be stored and distributed via tanks located behind the rear pressure bulkhead. The design features swept-back outer wing surfaces.
The third design is a 100-seat twin turboprop. It too would feature modified gas turbines fueled by hydrogen and, said Airbus, would fly to a range of up to around 1,000 nm.
Jean-Brice Dumont, Airbus’s executive vice president for engineering, told a September 21 media briefing that the final configuration of the first hydrogen airliner to enter service is still to be determined. “These are concept aircraft. These are not demonstrators and this is not a program, because we cannot yet say what the market is for these aircraft,” he explained, indicating that Airbus will aim the early development work at aggregating the most suitable aspects of the technologies under evaluation&nbsp;and determining how they meet key parameters, most notably safety.
While hydrogen can deliver the same energy as kerosene, it is around one-third of the weight of fossil fuel. “The catch is that its volume is four times as much as kerosene,” explained Vittadini. “So fuel tank design and integration are fundamentally important, and this could mean longer and wider fuselages that have an impact on aerodynamics.”
Airbus’s announcement confirms that it now views hydrogen propulsion as the key enabler for zero-emission air transport. In late April, the company announced the cancellation of its E-Fan X project with Rolls-Royce to develop a hybrid-electric-powered regional airliner. Just a few months earlier, the partners had said that a technology demonstrator based on an Avro&nbsp;RJ100 aircraft would start test flights during 2021. The program had received £58 million ($75 million) in UK government funding through the Aerospace Technology Institute and Clean Sky 2 organizations.
Over the past two or three years, Airbus has tested a pair of all-electric technology demonstrators for small eVTOL aircraft. In 2019, it completed testing of the single-seat Vahana model, and&nbsp;it is due to finish flight evaluation of a four-seat CityAirbus design by the end of 2020.&nbsp;
Glenn Llewellyn, Airbus’s vice president for zero-emissions aircraft, said that electric batteries do “have a place” for smaller aircraft, such as those intended for short-range mobility in urban areas, but that they cannot support larger commercial aircraft. Dumont mentioned that hydrogen propulsion might actually find its way onto an Airbus helicopter before the larger airliners are ready to enter service.
Vittadini maintained that Airbus will not waste the research and development investment in the trial projects. “All our learnings about electrification will flow seamlessly into any of these new concepts,” she said, adding that Airbus has been examining new ideas such as modified gas turbine architecture, new fuel injection principles, combustion chambers, and embedded electric motors.
Llewellyn said that hydrogen propulsion will deliver significantly more energy per kilogram of weight than electric batteries. “This is what [aviation] needs to meet the Paris Agreement [carbon-reduction] targets, and as the scale [of hydrogen use] is increased the costs will come down,” he stated.
Airbus has already started to work with multiple undisclosed airlines, energy companies, and airports to address the complex infrastructure needs to support hydrogen propulsion for aviation. “The entire ecosystem [for air transport] will have to change,” said Llewellyn.
The ZeroE announcement from Airbus came just four days after rival aerospace group Boeing confirmed that it is closing its Boeing NeXt innovation division just over two years since its launch&nbsp;in July 2018.&nbsp;
Vittadini said that Airbus is willing to invest “billions” in hydrogen technology and that its efforts will lower the entry barriers to using the fuel. Asked by reporters why the company is boosting investments at a time when it is suffering historic reductions in revenues and profitability, she insisted that the effort is imperative to securing the long-term sustainability of the air transport industry.
“Why are we doing this now in a crisis?” she asked rhetorically. “We do not have a choice.”

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Airbus has completed two years of flight testing for its Autonomous Taxi, Take-Off, and Landing (ATTOL) project. The work culminated in a fully automatic, vision-based flight of an A350-1000 widebody airliner, achieved through the use of on-board image recognition technology, which the manufacturer described as a world-first in a June 29 press statement.
More than 500 test flights were made as part of the project and around 450 of these were used to gather the raw video data that Airbus engineers needed to support and fine-tune the algorithms for the autonomous technology. There were six test flights to evaluate the autonomous flight capabilities, with each one including five takeoffs and landings in the airliner.
Under the direction of the Airbus UpNext team, ATTOL tapped technical expertise from several Airbus divisions, including Acubed’s Project Wayfinder team which developed the Vahana eVTOL technology demonstrator, as well as Airbus Defence and Space, and Airbus China. French national aerospace laboratory Onera was also involved in the work.
According to Airbus, ATTOL was conceived to explore how autonomous technologies, including the use of machine learning algorithms and automated tools for data labeling, processing, and model generation could help pilots to focus more on strategic decision making and mission management during flights, rather than on aircraft operations. The goal is to boost the operational safety of existing airliners, but also potentially allow for autonomous flights by new generation eVTOL urban air mobility aircraft.
“Many aircraft are already able to land automatically,” explained ATTOL project lead Sebastien Giuliano. “But they’re reliant on external infrastructure like instrument landing systems or GPS signals. ATTOL aims to make this possible solely using on-board technology to maximize efficiency and to reduce infrastructure cost.”
Acubed’s Wayfinder team developed the software that, based on computer vision and machine learning, allows an aircraft to detect its surrounding environment and calculate how best to navigate within it. This is achieved using a combination of sensors, including cameras, radar, laser-based LiDAR, and powerful onboard computers.
“The key challenge for self-piloting capabilities is how the system reacts to unforeseen events,” said Wayfinder project executive Arne Stoschek. “That’s the big jump from automated to autonomous.”

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Airbus says it will continue developing its plans to build eVTOL aircraft for urban air mobility applications, despite the recent cancellation of its joint E-Fan X hybrid-electric aircraft program with Rolls-Royce. Flight testing of the CityAirbus multicopter is set to resume at the Airbus Helicopter facilities at Manching in southern Germany as soon as Covid-19 lockdown restrictions permit, a company spokesman confirmed on May 5.
The two-seat CityAirbus made its first untethered flight in late 2019. Like the earlier single-seat Vahana tiltwing eVTOL, it is intended as a technology demonstrator to provide data that will inform Airbus’s eventual plans to develop a production aircraft.
In late April, Airbus and aircraft engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce announced that they are ending development work on the E-Fan X technology demonstrator, which was based on a BAE 146 regional airliner. The project was launched in 2017 as part of a long-term effort to develop a hybrid electric commercial aircraft, starting with the replacement of one of the 146’s four turbofan engines with a 2MW electric motor.
For the E-Fan X project, Rolls-Royce developed a hybrid-electric power generation system built around one of its AE2100 gas turbines driving a 2.5MW generator and a 3,000V power electronics and electric propulsion unit. According to the UK-based group’s chief technology officer, Paul Stein, this represented the largest-scale hybrid-electric propulsion system yet developed for an aircraft. 
Announcing a 49 percent decline in operating profit and a 15 percent dip in revenues for the first quarter of 2020 on April 29, Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury made a point of saying that the decarbonization of aviation remains a key research and development priority for the European group. Meanwhile, Airbus is reducing capital expenditure for this year by around $761 million.
Airbus has previously indicated that flight testing of the CityAirbus would likely be complete by the end of 2020, although this timeline may now have to be pushed back because of delays associated with the Covid-19 pandemic. The company has not published a timeline for developing its first production eVTOL model, but it appears to view this as a longer-term project that may well run through to the second half of the current decade.

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