Urban air mobility will be challenged to demonstrate more tangible progress

摘要

If you believe the most bullish assessments from the gold rush of companies looking to bring electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft to market, the 2020s will be their breakthrough decade. Ride-share giant Uber would have us believe that as early as 2023 it will be ready to start trial air-taxi operations in the early-adopter city of Dallas and that by the end of the decade what is being categorized as urban air mobility (UAM) will be mainstream in multiple major cities around the world. If even half of what is projected for this decade is going to come to pass, then 2020 had better be a year in which we see significant progress from the self-de-clared front-runners among the 200 or so new aircraft programs in contention. In 2019, numerous programs missed timeline dates for achieving key program stage gates, such as first test flights.