Airbus conducts electric chopper's demonstrator flight

Airbus Helicopters has conducted testing of its full-scale electric demonstrator chopper CityAirbus. According to the company, the chopper is an all-electric multicopter vehicle demonstrator and it focuses on advancing remotely piloted electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) flight.

New Delhi: Airbus Helicopters has conducted testing of its full-scale electric demonstrator chopper CityAirbus. Taking to Twitter on Thursday, Airbus said: “Our full-scale UAM demonstrator took off at 2,310 kg - the highest take-off weight of a full electric VTOL aircraft with a distributed drive system.” The four-minute demo saw the chopper fly at an altitude of 20 meters, added the tweet.

• New #CityAirbus video👇. Our full-scale #UAM demonstrator took off at 2,310 kg - the highest take-off weight of a full electric VTOL aircraft with a distributed drive system.
  The 4-minute demo saw the 4-seat #eVTOL fly at an altitude of 20 metres. #ZeroEmissions pic.twitter.com/SqQDSuDkl2

  — Airbus Helicopters (@AirbusHeli) July 29, 2021 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="

  New #CityAirbus video👇. Our full-scale #UAM demonstrator took off at 2,310 kg - the highest take-off weight of a full electric VTOL aircraft with a distributed drive system.
  The 4-minute demo saw the 4-seat #eVTOL fly at an altitude of 20 metres. #ZeroEmissions pic.twitter.com/SqQDSuDkl2

  — Airbus Helicopters (@AirbusHeli) July 29, 2021

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  New #CityAirbus video👇. Our full-scale #UAM demonstrator took off at 2,310 kg - the highest take-off weight of a full electric VTOL aircraft with a distributed drive system.
  The 4-minute demo saw the 4-seat #eVTOL fly at an altitude of 20 metres. #ZeroEmissions pic.twitter.com/SqQDSuDkl2

  — Airbus Helicopters (@AirbusHeli) July 29, 2021

CityAirbus is an all-electric multicopter vehicle demonstrator. According to the company, the chopper focuses on advancing remotely piloted electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) flight. It has a multicopter configuration that features four ducted high-lift propulsion units, and cruise speed will be approximately 120 Km/h on fixed routes with up to 15 minutes of autonomy. It also has a capacity of four passengers that is ideal for aerial urban ridesharing, says the company website.

Technical specifications of CityAirbus. Source: airbus.com

Though a full-scale demonstrator conducted its first take-off in May 2019, the latest test flight was conducted with its highest take-off weight of 2,310 kg.“To date, the CityAirbus sub-scale model has flown more than 100 test flights, which has proven the aerodynamic configuration of the full-scale prototype,” says the website.