Designed in 1943 by Austrian aeronautical engineer, Raoul Hafner, for the British Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment (AFEE), the Hafner Rotabuggy was a standard Willey’s Jeep converted into an autogyro*. What is an autogyro? Well, like a helicopter it has rotor blades, but unlike a helicopter they are...
A Chinese company’s combination multi-rotor, 2-seat eVTOL aircraft and state-of-the-art transporter vehicle, is already taking orders, especially in the Middle East where it has recently completed its first global public manned flight. In the UK, hardly anyone has heard of XPENG but it is one of China’s...
The first ever electric flight to land at London Gatwick airport, did so yesterday (9 July) as part of the VINCI Airports Network Elektro Tour. The Elektro Tour is taking place over 17 days with a Pipistrel Velis Electro* light aircraft flying between nine VINCI airports in...
Skyports Infrastructure held a preview last week of its now complete vertiport at Bicester Motion in Oxfordshire. This is one of the UK’s first testing grounds and hubs for electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) flights. Vertiports are a key component of the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM)...
A Texas-based start-up, Venus Aerospace, is developing a next-generation rocket engine that could power hypersonic* aircraft. This includes passenger aircraft flying from conventional runways. They aim to reach speeds between four to six times the speed of sound. At Mach 4, passengers could leave London and arrive...
Vertical Aerospace, last week, reached a landmark in the development of their VX4 eVTOL, by making the first-ever piloted wingborne flight of a winged eVTOL in European open airspace. Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft developers around the world are edging nearer and nearer to fully...
Archer Aviation has been selected as the Official Air Taxi Provider for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, Paralympic Games, and Team USA . This mirrors the plans of Volocopter at last year’s Olympics in Paris, which in the end failed to come about. Similarly, Archer’s Midnight eVTOL...
An interesting article appeared in the Southern Daily Echo regional newspaper yesterday, about a Britten-Norman Trislander joining the collection at the Solent Sky museum in Southampton Iconic Trislander at Solent Sky Museum in Southampton What struck me was some of the slightly mean-minded comments about the Trislander,...
We are supposedly on the brink of an aviation revolution and the general public have little idea what’s about to happen. The moment is soon coming when the aviation technologies that many people are vaguely aware off, actually transition into the real thing. When people see an...
The citizens of Paris, and visitors to the Olympic Games (26 Jul – 11 Aug), may be among the first to see how close we all are to the new world of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) now that the French Government has given the go ahead to...
Alauda Aeronautics, the Australian company who have been developing the new sport of electric flying car racing, have moved from testing full-scale racing drones, to the next stage, the Airspeeder Mk4 – for human pilots. The Mk4 is the world’s fastest electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL)...
This is a niche blog about technically-minded travel. It reflects my own interests in the mechanical, technical, historical, engineering, transport and military world.
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