Volocopter Performs Crewed Demo Flight From Paris Vertiport
Volocopter has performed a successful crewed demonstration flight in Paris with its 2X technology demonstrator, although the effort was a bit anticlimactic compared to original plans.
Volocopter has performed a successful crewed demonstration flight in Paris with its 2X technology demonstrator, although the effort was a bit anticlimactic compared to original plans.
Planned to coincide with the city’s hosting of the 2024 Summer Olympics, the piloted flight was operated from the newly inaugurated vertiport built by Paris airport operator Groupe ADP at the Saint-Cyr-l’Ecole Aerodrome, close to the Palace of Versailles.
While a momentous occasion for the startup, the flight was a letdown compared to original plans that called for Volocopter to fly paying passengers on the production-version VoloCity aircraft. Those flights were originally planned to operate from a network of five vertiports built by Groupe ADP, including a controversial floating barge in the River Seine near the Paris-Austerlitz train station, although in the lead up to the Olympics the scope was narrowed to just Austerlitz and Saint-Cyr-l’Ecole, a Volocopter spokesperson says.
In the end, even those plans were downgraded. First the startup determined its delayed certification timeline would not allow it to fly paying passengers as originally planned. Supplier delays affecting certain components on the VoloCity, including the electric motors, forced a late decision to shift to the 2X demonstrator instead of the VoloCity, the spokesperson says.
In a further blow to its plans, Volocopter failed to secure all the necessary authorizations to fly from the Austerlitz barge, restricting its operations to Saint-Cyr-l’Ecole, a Groupe ADP spokesperson says.
Volocopter says in a statement that it still expects to fly from the Austerlitz vertiport later this year. The Groupe ADP spokesperson also says that a flight inside the gardens of Chateau de Versailles is planned for Aug. 11.
The other vertiports constructed by Groupe ADP around Paris—at Pointoise, Charles De Gaulle Airport, Le Bourget Airport, and Issy-Les-Molineaux—are all ready to be activated as soon as the VoloCity is certified, the Groupe ADP spokesperson adds.
The inauguration of the Saint-Cyr-l’Ecole vertiport marks the beginning of an “operational validation phase” in which the company says it plans to conduct a series of pre-commercial test flights to evaluate and mature flight maneuvers around the vertiports, ground testing, communication with ATC, battery charging and other related issues.
Volocopter CEO Dirk Hoke says in a statement that the company is focused on earning type certification for its two-seater VoloCity by year’s end.
He also says the startup plans to launch emergency medical service test trials alongside German air ambulance operator ADAC Luftrettung in 2025.
