AN EVTOL WITH SUPERCAR SEXY APPEAL
London-based bellwether industries have revealed footage from the first untethered flight of its ‘volar’ eVTOL today (January 12th, 2022). described by the company as a new category of flying vehicle‘, the aircraft has a sleek, aerodynamic form that’s more akin to a supercar than other eVTOLs currently in development.
the UK company hasn’t yet released the full spec for the first volar prototype—named ‘antelope’—but we do know it’s designed for private use and features a compact profile for agile intracity travel. we also know that the propulsion system that powers the vertical take-off & landing is hidden underneath the aircraft’s sci-fi-esque body. and from the renders, it looks like the eVTOL seats just one passenger.
so far, bellwether industries have showcased its ‘antelope’ prototype at Dubai airshow 2021, the drones tradeshow in London, and the AIR TAXI world congress, but this new test flight footage gives us a closer glimpse at how the eVTOL will fly.
the company says, ‘we believe that people commuting in the sky is inevitable within the next 10 years. therefore, we create a volar for anyone to fly anytime and anywhere to any point. the ultimate goal of bellwether industries is to build a brand new 3-dimensional lifestyle and to lead the world toward a more comprehensive urban mobility.’
The company said it will be ready to share a video of the test flight soon, but told eVTOL.com that it was able to log eight test flights with its half-scale model during the session — an accomplishment for the team that has now graduated from a year of indoor tethered flights.
The eVTOL developer is targeting the private urban aircraft market for intracity travel and has built the Volar as a compact vehicle with a hidden propulsion system. The final aircraft will measure 3.2 meters (10.5 feet) wide, which is about 1.5 m (5 ft) wider than an average car.
“A lot of the problems we have is the vehicle doesn’t look like an aircraft, so when people see it, they don’t see how it could work or how it could fly but it’s real,” said Kai-Tse Lin, chief operating officer and co-founder of Bellwether. Through the first test flight, Lin said the company has been able to demonstrate the vehicle’s controllability.
Compared to some of the bigger players in the eVTOL space, Bellwether is a younger startup, established in 2019 by four college classmates. But Lin and fellow co-founder Daniel Chen began experimenting in space in 2013 when the duo started building their first hovercraft called the Gazelle, which made its debut at the International Young Designers’ Exhibition (YODEX) in Taipei, Taiwan, in 2015.
“We made that model hover, but we couldn’t make it fly because it was too heavy,” Lin said. Nevertheless, he said “that was an important milestone for the team to establish this idea of flying vehicles. We continued to develop the idea, and then we went to the U.K. to start a bigger team and a new project. Then we founded the company.”
Up until now, the startup has remained mum about its project, but recently decided to make public appearances at the DroneX Trade Show and AIR TAXI World Congress this fall, and then more recently at the Dubai Airshow in November where its aircraft was shown to the public for the first time.
These public appearances are vital steps for the company to draw investors for its next seed round. In addition to the US$1 million that the company raised last year from angel investors, Bellwether said it needs to raise an undisclosed amount of funds to build a full-scale working prototype with integrated subsystems, as well as expand its engineering team.
The current prototype is a two-seat eVTOL, but Bellwether said its final vehicle will be a four- to five-seat aircraft that can transport families around traffic-congested cities.
The prototype was remotely piloted during the test flight and flew up to four meters (13 feet) at a speed of around 40 kilometers an hour (25 miles an hour). The company said its final design will be able to cruise at altitudes of up to 915 m (3,000 ft), speeds of 220 km/h (135 mph), and have a maximum take-off weight of 600 kilograms (1,320 pounds).
Lin said the team is planning to design a fully electric VTOL, but as the Volar is still in its early stages of development, Bellwether is not taking anything off the table. He said the team is targeting a battery system with a duration of 60 to 90 minutes that would be capable of carrying out intracity trips.
“We’re open to all kinds of power sources, but the vehicle control and the basic system will still be electric,” Lin said.
Along with designing the aircraft, Bellwether is exploring other business models — namely an air traffic management system and UAM infrastructure.
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