Anduril gets into the eVTOL space, Beta goes to NZ & more (The Allplane Newsletter #175)
Picture: Beta Technologies and Air New Zealand
There’s a new episode of the podcast!
Joshua Ng is a director at Alton Aviation Consultancy, one of the world’s leading advisory firms specializing in aviation. In this episode of the podcast, we review, together with Joshua, some of the main trends currently shaping the transition towards cleaner aviation, paying particular interest to the Asian markets.
Electric aviation
EcoPulse, an experimental aircraft developed by Daher, Safran and Airbus to evaluate hybrid-electric distributed propulsion has officially ended its test campaign after some 50 flights.
Nimbus Aerospace, a US startup developing an electric executive jet, has flown a 1:10 scale demonstrator of its N1000 concept aircraft.
Air New Zealand announced plans to start testing BETA Technologies CX300 battery-electric aircraft in its home islands starting in April. It’s going to be cool to see that aircraft flying in Air NZ’s livery!
Advanced Air Mobility
Archer and Anduril, two of America’s tech darlings, have announced a strategic partnership to work together in defense projects, including the development of a hybrid-electric VTOL aircraft.
And this is not all: Archer has also raised another $430M, including from existing shareholders such as United Airlines and Stellantis.
Joby launched a $300M public stock offering to increase the size of its war chest. This will bring the total raised by the Joby to $2.6B!
But these haven’t been the only news involving Joby this week: the eVTOL developer has completed South Korea’s K-UAM program (the first company to do so), a flight test program that aims to evaluate different types of mission profiles in the Korean market. Joby has also announced a partnership with Dubai-based private aviation group Jetex to provide services to the latter’s customers throughout the UAE.
Why are aerostructure manufacturers flocking to the eVTOL sector? My piece for AeroTime about the different supply chain strategies of eVTOL developers and Tier 1 suppliers.
Other sustainable aviation stories
The UK has revamped its Jet Zero Task Force (not to be confused with aircraft startup JetZero!). It will meet periodically with the industry’s leaders and track progress towards the fulfillment of SAF mandates, among other things. You can read the official announcement here.
Other interesting aviation stories
Blake Scholl announced that Boom Supersonic has closed a $100M round that will allow it to fully fund the development of its Symphony engine prototype. Some quite prominent investors in this round, including Sam Altman, Y Combinator, Michael Moritz of Sequoia and Linkedin founder Reid Hoffman.
An interesting overview of what is hypersonic flight and the different choices and trade-offs necessary to achieve it, by the always interesting Jordan Taylor, on his new blog.
My interview on AeroTime’s Executive Spotlight with SkyTeam’s CEO, Patrick Roux.
Sofia Airport prepares for a massive expansion that will double its capacity. I went to Bulgaria to attend Aviation-Event SOF and speak with the airport’s Spanish CEO.