Northwest Aerospace News PNAA 2021 ADVANCE | Page 32

Tibbitts said they are already in production , and added that there is another eVTOL , called Lilium ( https :// www . lilium . com /), “ They are a comparable vehicle , but it looks like a regular aircraft with a wing and a tail and requires a much larger area to fly in and out of .”

There are 25 eVTOL leaders staking their claim on the ZERO project now . Tibbitts said , “ They are being paid in stock options ; as soon as we get major funding , we can immediately create 50 high tech jobs , and then 200-plus high paying jobs . My attitude is that all these bailout packages are great , but what people need are jobs . This will grow jobs in the Puget Sound area .”
The company ’ s mission is , “ To enable personal point to point air travel .” Tibbitts said that is , “ The Jetson ’ s Utopia — fly from wherever you are to wherever you want to go efficiently . So much of what we want to do is a huge hub and spoke model which forms a choke point . People want to go from point A to point B ; why should people go through a hub ?” His suggestion is to fly as the crow flies . And , because the current prototype holds only one person and no payload , they are starting on another version that will allow ,
32 NORTHWEST AEROSPACE NEWS