Orb Takes Flight

By Kimberly Underwood

The Air Force's Agility Prime program conducts first demonstration of electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVTOL, aircraft.

Last Thursday afternoon, leaders deemed the first demonstration of a flying orb by AFWERX's Agility Prime effort a success. The event was the first in a series of steps toward the U.S. Air Force fielding electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVTOLs, by 2023.

Held at Camp Mabry, near Austin Texas, with the Texas National Guard as hosts, the exhibition of LIFT Aircraft's Hexa eVTOL vehicle included the service's top brass. Secretary of the Air Force Barbara Barrett, new Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., and new Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass were all on hand to see the new aircraft, flown by LIFT CEO Matthew Chasen.

“It was really exciting,” said Col. Nathan Diller, USAF, AFWERX director and Agility Prime lead, “These demonstrations start to show some of the maturity of the vehicle. And the fact that LIFT was able to do all the preparations and do an on-time takeoff and have all the maintenance pieces together [was great].”

Col. Diller, who is spearheading Agility Prime's Air Race to Certification, which aims to have a first series of initial eVTOL capability by December, spoke to SIGNAL Magazine on Saturday.

In the coming weeks, Agility Prime will conduct more demonstrations like the LIFT Aircraft event, with a “handful of companies,” he said. “And when that testing gets to a level where we feel this learning campaign would bring military utility at cost, we can start to purchase hardware, data or potential services, such as flight test-as-a-service.”

Following the demonstrations with the companies, they may proceed into a full test plan, using combined operational testing, the colonel added.

For the demonstration, the service also had to achieve the appropriate regulatory approvals. To use the airspace for the basic maneuvering, they needed much lower altitudes than a conventional aircraft would use, and in an urban environment.

“The FAA gave us authorization to operate, both manned and unmanned [aircraft] within a few miles of downtown Austin,” Col. Diller shared. “And the CEO of LIFT actually flew the aircraft, so he hopped into the orb. The Hexa has a very interesting architecture, and when you think of the reliability....and to hear the acoustics, that was something to see.”

The Air Force leaders were really impressed, the colonel shared.

“There is kind of this ‘ahh moment' where, there is actually something flying,” he said. “And then [you see] that it is actually a demonstration more of the maturity when you start to look at it, the maturity of the vehicle and the maturity of the technology. There was a build-up that allowed us to have the confidence to do that and operate at Camp Mabry.

And given that is was Texas in August, with an air temperature of about 100 degrees, the colonel said it also was a test of the e-VOTL's operations in such as environment.

Col. Diller added that it was quite something to see the eVTOL aircraft as well as the Guard's F-16s at Camp Mabry, and it put into perspective where the flying orb technology could play a role in urban air mobility.

“The ability to fly one of those, with the advances in new aircraft controls, there are some interesting opportunities to think about pilot training in the future, and to think about who across our service might be able to fly these in the future,” Col. Diller pondered.

https://www.afcea.org/content/orb-takes-flight