ePlane has raised about USD 21 million to develop the programme and plans to begin commercial operations after achieving certification milestones
Electric aviation firm ePlane has completed the assembly of its full-scale electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, the e200X, marking the start of ground and flight testing before certification and commercial operations.
In a press statement, ePlane says that the completed prototype, designated PT-01, moves the programme from the design stage to physical testing. The aircraft has been developed as a single platform that can be configured for passenger air taxi, urban cargo and air ambulance operations.
The statement adds that the e200X was designed and assembled at its facilities in Chennai, with key systems, including the airframe, propellers, landing gear and battery pack, developed in-house. The aircraft will now undergo structural and systems testing before entering flight trials and the certification process with India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
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The company says that it has raised about USD 21 million to develop the programme and plans to begin commercial operations after achieving certification milestones. The completed aircraft will also be unveiled publicly in the coming weeks as the company advances towards commercial deployment.
“We set out to build an electric aircraft to a world-class benchmark, engineered and manufactured in depth in India for the World. We deliberately designed the e200X to be compact, because an aircraft that asks a city to rebuild itself around it will not solve the problem it was built to solve. The same airframe can move people as an air taxi, carry goods as a cargo aircraft, and save lives as an air ambulance, and it can do all three using the infrastructure cities already have. That combination of real capability and capital efficiency is how we intend to compete, and win, in markets around the world,” says Satya Chakravarthy, Founder, ePlane.
