The technology is nearly ready, but regulators do not yet know how to classify safety standards
, on a windy field at Farnborough, south-west of London, a handlebar-mustachioed former Wild West showman named Samuel Cody completed the first official controlled flight of a powered aeroplane in Britain. Since then many other pioneering aircraft, from Concorde to the giant Airbus A380, have flown at what became the biennial Farnborough air show. The aerospace centre that stages the show is now preparing for another sort of revolutionary aircraft to take to the sky.
Other types of air taxis use a “tilt wing”. This has multiple rotors mounted on the wings, which tilt up for a vertical take-off and landing, but tilt ahead to operate like a fixed-wing aeroplane with propellers for forward flight. This saves power and increases the range of the aircraft. Kitty Hawk, a firm backed by Larry Page, boss of Google’s parent Alphabet, has teamed up with Boeing, the world’s largest aerospace company, to develop Cora. This two-seater uses 12 lifting rotors on a fixed wing and is pushed along by a rear-mounted propeller. It has a range of about 100km and will be used by Air New Zealand to run an air-taxi service.
Some countries, though, are pressing ahead faster than others. Operators already complain they can use a drone to deliver blood in Rwanda but not in America, says thefirms on flight trials and sharing information is the best way to reach global standards, reckons Tim Johnson, policy director of the Civil Aviation Authority in Britain. The agency has more than 20 groups planning air-taxi flight trials in Britain.
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