Aircraft

This year marks 60 years since Renault launched the Quatrelle, and though the company has been celebrating all year, a collaboration with design studio TheArsenale to build a flying car concept is arguably its best birthday present to itself yet.

Czech company Zuri has commenced hover testing on its first near-scale VTOL air taxi tech demonstrator. With a hybrid powertrain on board, this team promises real-world range figures up to 720 km (447 miles) at cruise speeds up to 320 km/h (200 mph).

Zeva is deadly serious about bringing this tail-sitting eVTOL flying saucer to market as a one-person air taxi, and if you can get over the idea of soaring above the city head-first, face-down and Superman-style, it's got some interesting advantages.

Lufthansa takes inspiration from superyachts in creating its new Explorer Concept, an airborne explorer yacht with a five-star cabin. The aircraft travels the globe in hours, instead of the days or weeks it would take slower expedition vehicles.

Germany's Fraundorfer Aeronautics has unveiled its Tensor 600X gyroplane at the European Rotors show. It's a two-seat design mainly targeted at personal use, but the company claims it'll soon scale up to a certified six-seater for air taxi purposes.

An aircraft developed by Rolls-Royce to smash the speed record for an all-electric plane reached a maximum speed of 623 km/h (387.4 mph) during its latest round of testing in the UK, which would make it the world's fastest electric vehicle of any kind.

After several years out of the public eye, Leonardo's AW609 re-emerged at the 2021 Dubai Airshow this month. It's expected the civilian tiltrotor aircraft could achieve certification next year, almost two decades after it first flew.

Synthetic fuels are not new, nor is their use in aircraft, but the normal practice is to blend them with fossil fuels. The Royal Air Force has now set a new record by completing the first ever aircraft flight powered entirely by synthetic fuel.

The first man ever to take flight in an electric VTOL aircraft has returned to the arena with an interesting new "eMagic One" lift & cruise tandem-wing design. Did he get the bicycle helmet out and fly it yet? You bet – but without a yoga ball.

Volocopter's ambitions in the flying taxi space have taken another step forward, with the startup's electric aircraft performing its first crewed flight in South Korea as the country eyes a proper lift-off for a commercial air taxi service in 2025.

Aerospace startup Hermeus recently unveiled a full-size, partly-functional mock-up of its highly-streamlined, delta-winged Quarterhorse hypersonic aircraft before an invited audience of dignitaries, who were treated to the firing of an inbuilt test engine.

We've known for some time that Hyundai is making some serious moves to break into the eVTOL air taxi market, and now it's spun off a company dedicated purely to air mobility. Supernal expects its electric VTOL aircraft to enter service in 2028.