UNMANNED

                      This will be the fourth-generation electrical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL) by the German Urban Air Mobility developer. The VoloCity has been designed to meet the safety standards specified by EASA (SC-VTOL category enhanced). With a calculated range of 18 nautical miles and airspeed of 60 knots, the VoloCity is designed to serve as an on-demand inner-city air taxi. Over 1,000 test flights on previous Volocopter generations and market research with several hundred potential customers have informed the design and technical specifications of the VoloCity.     

The U.S. Department of Defense will roll out a "trusted capital" program this fall aimed at bolstering the domestic industrial base for small unmanned aircraft, said Ellen Lord, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment. One effort afoot is to strengthen the defense industrial base in areas including rare earths and small UAS, both areas where "China has flooded our market, to the point where we do not have a resilient and secure industrial base...," she said. Bell has announced the successful first autonomous flight of the Autonomous Pod Transport (APT) 70 at their testing site near Fort Worth. Bell plans to  continue to test the vehicle under an experimental type certificate throughout the remainder of the year. APT 70 is part of the eVTOL family of vehicles Bell is developing and can reach speeds of more than 100mph and has a baseline payload capability of 70 lbs. 
      
     Bell’s APT systems allow for flexible mission capabilities while keeping operations simple, efficient and fast; they are capable of twice the speed and range of a conventional multirotor. The vehicle is designed for rapid deployment, quick reconfiguration, and nimble battery swap and recharge. All this -- and MORE in today's episode of Airborne-Unmanned!!!