Northwest Aerospace News PNAA 2021 ADVANCE | Page 31

Some of the early applications that Tibbitts envisions for DOD are ship-to-shore transportation , covert operations , and re-supply . Tibbitts said they “ have been approached by prime contractors .” He also can envision search and rescue . Tibbitts notes that they haven ’ t yet contracted with the DOD for vehicle production , but said , “ We are in talks with them . The vehicles aren ’ t ready for sale yet ; they are still in prototyping stage , ( we have ) one full scale working model at this point . It will be a year to year-and-a-half before production .”
And , while ZEVA is working had to get the ZERO to market , competition exists in the eVTOL market . Tibbitts said , “ There are so many different vehicles being proposed . Some are ahead of us in time , some are not .” He cited the VOLO- COPTER , which will start commercial flights in 2022 , ( https :// www . volocopter . com / en / urban-mobility /) and EHang , out of Guangzhou , China , whose site , http :// www . ehang . com , lists “ EHang AAV is born to bring 3D air traffic systems to reality . EHang aims at making safe , autonomous and eco-friendly air mobility accessible to everyone by providing comprehensive solutions including hardware and software configuration , take-off and landing platform establishment and other operational services .”
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