Eve will complete ground-based evaluations before beginning test flights involving incrementally moving the aircraft through the transition regime later this year.
Following a busy period of initial flight testing, Eve Air Mobility is equipping its engineering demonstrator air taxi with updated flight-control software and completing ground evaluations prior to completing its first “transition” flight, pegged for the third quarter.
Executives reviewed the company’s developmental progress on 5 May, saying the demonstrator has flown 59 times since its maiden flight in December.
The aircraft, which Melbourne, Florida-based Eve is using to inform its development of a passenger-carrying electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, has logged roughly 2.5h total time airborne, ascended to 215ft and reached speeds of 30kt. The flights returned “better than expected results for the motor thrust and battery performance”, says Eve chief executive Johann Bordais, speaking during the company’s first-quarter earnings call.
“The aircraft has tested and validated the auto-land feature, fully controlled by the fly-by-wire system,” adds Bordais. “We have also performed difficult manoeuvres in all four axes with consistent behaviour, allowing continuous envelope expansion.”
The team did, however, discover that the demonstrator’s performance when operating in the ground-effect region differed from expectations, though they say the issues has not disrupted the programme’s timeline.
Eve, which is 72% owned by Brazilian aircraft maker Embraer, has now shifted from the initial flight-test programme to ground-based work that involves installing “refined flight-computer software”, evaluating the software’s control laws and reviewing the pusher-propeller, actuators and flight-control surfaces, executives say.
Eve’s air taxi has eight lifting propellers mounted on booms extending from fixed wings, and a “dual-electric-motor” pusher prop.
The firm plans in the third quarter to complete the aircraft’s first transition flight — meaning a transition from vertical take-off under propeller-generated lift to forward wing-borne flight.
“The transition phase will be gradual, starting with partial transition, progressively increasing [in] speed,” says Bordais. “At the end of this phase, we plan to accelerate the aircraft to a full transition speed above 85kt. At this point, the entire lift of the aircraft will be provided by the wing.”
Successfully demonstrating that ability will be a notable milestone, proving the aircraft can perform the complex manoeuvre on which its business case rests. Competitors that have completed transition flights include Archer Aviation, Beta Technologies, Joby Aviation and Vertical Aerospace.
Eve’s flight-test programme will then shift into evaluating the aircraft’s response to motor and other system failures, say executives. The team intends to finish assessing the demonstrator in the fourth quarter and use their findings to finalise the design of a production-confirming aircraft.
Eve plans to start assembling the first prototype in the fourth quarter and to fly that aircraft early in the second half of 2027.
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