E-MOBILITY
The VX4 eVTOL A IN THE
SCENDANCY
Is the aerospace industry on the cusp of widespread electrification? This chief technology officer thinks so, and physical tests have begun on a revolutionary new craft. Jon Lawson takes up the story
T
he drive towards certification of eVTOLs is accelerating. Michael Cervenka, CTO at Vertical Aerospace says,
“The key catalyst in this industry has been Uber setting up its Elevate division. This created an excitement and awareness that has enabled the industry collectively to gain investment from serious companies, and it made the wider aerospace ecosystem sit up and take notice of the possibilities offered by eVTOLs. The other thing that was very helpful in the early days was that a set of specifications was laid out, giving the industry something to work on.” The outcome was that craft need
to carry four passengers and a pilot, with a range of around 100 miles. For dimensions, to fit in most of the existing heliports, width must be less than 15 metres. The company took this
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and, in combination with a study of what potential users needed, came up with the initial design criteria. That started the genesis of the VX4.
When Cervenka joined around five years ago, there were designs on the table, but nothing practical. His first task was to split the engineers into two teams: red and blue. “I had them competing against each other,” he explains. “I gave the same specification to both, to see who could come up with the best architecture. At that stage we undertook a lot of spreadsheet work, setting out important elements like payload, but alongside that a lot of concept studies were done with pen and paper. Part of the challenge is that it has to do very different things – taking off vertically places different requirements on the design compared to efficient flight. We wanted a high wing, to give good access to the cabin
and we wanted a competitive passenger cost-per-seat-mile, with eight propellers to give us the most efficient hover. Once we had those elements in place, we moved onto lots of simulation (with MATLAB) and CFD.” Cervenka decided to quickly move to
testing physical prototypes. “You can do all the computer, lab and wind tunnel testing you like but with a project like this it all comes together with the plane itself. Because what we’re doing is new, the best way to test our ideas is to build the thing. One of the key opportunities we have is that we can build in a huge amount of safety, which if you compare that to helicopters for example is not possible due to the large number of single-point failure parts. In fact, there are about 60 components in a helicopter where the failure of any one will bring it down. With our eight propeller design we can build in lots of
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