Surprise: Volocopter plans to enter the Private Aviation market!

VoloXPro full-scale prototype    
  (Mit freundlicher Genehmigung/Courtesy of Volocopter GmbH [LinkedIn])

Since Volocopter was acquired and integrated into the Chinese Wangfeng Group as a sister company of Diamond Aircraft, we haven’t heard much from the German multicopter pioneer. Now there is news from Bruchsal: Volocopter is planning to enter the Private and Business Aviation market. This segment covers all air traffic outside of regular scheduled flights, i.e., leisure flights with club aircraft or business trips with company jets. 

To this end, a smaller and lighter multicopter was developed based on the prototype 2X. The two-seater VoloXPro has a maximum takeoff mass of 600 kg and can be certified as an ultralight aircraft in Germany. You can already see the new product in piloted flight on LinkedIn!

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With this step, the Baden-based company is expanding its business areas and joining the list of global start-ups developing advanced air mobility aircraft for Private Aviation. The table above lists the most important players in this segment:  

  • With its two-seater VoloXPro, Volocopter is well positioned among mulicopter start-ups. Only Bellwether and Alef Aero offer comparable seating capacity, but Volocopter is likely to be significantly further ahead in development.   
  • In the two–seater, wingbased eVTOL segment, Israel’s Air appears to be the leader with 2,200 pre-orders.

We have now learned more news from the Badische Neuste Nachrichten newspaper. Volocopter is continuing to work on the certification of the VoloCity, meaning that the Commercial Aviation business segment will remain in place. 

Certification is carried out in close cooperation with EASA. One of the key challenges is that the certification requirements for eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft are still relatively new. Both aircraft manufacturers and certification authorities first need to gain practical experience and cannot rely on a standard process from previous projects.

Certification in aviation is a comprehensive overall process consisting of a large number of individual steps. These include development and type certification, approval of test flight activities, production certification, and the qualification and training of flight personnel. Only the coordinated interaction of all these elements enables safe and compliant commissioning.

In general, the financial cost of certifying a new aircraft type is around €1.5 billion; according to Volocopter, the lion’s share of the funding has already been secured.