Boeing’s autonomous flying electric ‘air taxi’ completes test flight

American aircraft manufacturer Boeing reports that it has successfully completed the first test flight of its autonomous air taxi. It is a small electric aircraft that can land and take off vertically, and is intended for relatively short distances in urban areas.

During the test flight, during which the autonomous functions and the control systems were tested on the ground, the prototype successfully took off, hovered and landed again, Boeing reports. This all involved a vertical ‘flight’, where only take-off and landing took place, and the aircraft could hover in the air, like a consumer drone.

Future flights should also test horizontal flying, with airflow over the wings keeping the prototype in the air. It will also test the transition from vertical take-off and hover to horizontal flying, which Boeing says is the biggest technical challenge for Vtol aircraft. For example, on the United States Air Force’s propeller-driven V-22 Osprey, the angle or direction of the propeller is changed to allow for this transition from hovering in mid-air to actual level flight. Exactly how this works with this prototype is unknown.

Boeing NeXt, a division that focuses on the future of mobility, has developed the autonomous aircraft together with Boeing division Aurora Flight Sciences. The prototype has an electric propulsion system that should enable a fully autonomous flight of 80 km. The company does not report anything about the specifications of the batteries. The aircraft is over 9 meters long and 8.5 meters wide. In the design, Boeing has integrated the propulsion into the wing systems, which should enable efficient hovering and horizontal flying.