Aircraft

A small but growing number of companies are pushing hard on personal buy 'n' fly eVTOL aircraft, and today Israel's Air One joins their ranks: a handsome two-seat, 155-mph, 110-mile machine with fold-up wings, focused on fun and practicality.

Honda Aircraft Company has shown off a mock-up of its HondaJet 2600 Concept in Las Vegas. The Concept's projected 3020 mile range will make it the first light business jet capable of flying nonstop across the continental United States.

Every minute an eVTOL air taxi spends charging is a minute it's losing money. So Lilium and ABB have teamed up to build a megawatt-class eVTOL ultra-charger capable of fully charging an air taxi in 30 minutes, or doing 0-80 percent in just 15 minutes.

eHang certainly won't be alone in the skies when China's eVTOL air taxi market opens up. Two new projects have just been announced: the Autoflight V1500M, and the Pantuo Pantala – which frankly should be expecting a letter from Lilium's lawyers.

Airbus' latest high-endurance stratosphere drone, the Zephyr S, has set a new altitude record for an Unmanned Aerial System in its class, soaring to 76,100 ft in the skies over Arizona during two flights totaling 36 days aloft.

Better known for its work developing 18-rotor flying taxis, Volocopter is adapting its expertise in electric aviation for the purposes of moving heavy cargo, and its giant VoloDrone has now completed its very first public flight.

The fascinating CycloTech eVTOL prototype has taken its first flight tests, running its paddle steamer-style "Cyclogiro" propulsion system, which offers some interesting advantages over typical multirotor-style designs.

HyPoint's aviation-targeted fuel cells were already promising three times the power of a regular fuel cell by weight, but thanks to a new proton-conductive membrane developed in partnership with BASF, their power density is set to jump by another 50 percent.

Gulfstream Aerospace has rolled out its two latest business jets. The Gulfstream G800 is the longest-range aircraft to be built by the General Dynamics subsidiary, and the Gulfstream G400 is its first large-cabin jet in a decade.

Japan's Tetra Aviation plans to start delivering single-seat electric VTOL lift and cruise aircraft to customers by the end of 2022, and it has now released video footage of its Mk-5 aircraft making test flights in California.

After shutting down the Vahana program in 2019, Airbus has revealed the new four-seat electric VTOL aircraft it's taking to the air taxi market for 2025. And while it's very pretty, the new CityAirbus's spec sheet is surprisingly underwhelming.

Craft Aero's nine-seat hybrid-electric VTOL aircraft promises 1,000-mile, 345-mph roof-to-roof inter-city hops – and it does so using a diamond-shaped blown box wing configuration and flap-vectored thrust design different to anything we've seen.