Vertical Flight Society Continues Record Growth, Exceeds 180 Corporate Members

FAIRFAX, Va. (PRWEB)
January 10, 2023

The Vertical Flight Society (VFS), the world’s main non-profit group working to advance vertical flight, studies right now that the explosive progress of world’s electrical vertical takeoff and touchdown (eVTOL) plane — plus important developments in army and civil rotorcraft — have continued to increase its membership.

As of Jan. 1, 2023, a complete of 183 firms are actually members of VFS, a web progress of 20 firms (12%) from a yr in the past, and 83 firms over the previous 5 years. VFS has almost 6,400 particular person members — a web enhance of almost 6% (350 people) since earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic and a 30% progress (1,400 people) over the previous six years. Much of this progress is as a result of in depth help efforts and sources that VFS offers to the vertical flight business, together with technical sources, expertise acquisition, skilled improvement, academic alternatives and networking.

“This previous yr noticed spectacular progress in direction of certification of eVTOL plane within the US, Europe and Asia,” mentioned VFS Executive Director Mike Hirschberg. “VFS has been instrumental in bringing the neighborhood collectively and growing broad help for eVTOL developments over the previous decade. We are very happy with the progress proven by our company members, in addition to our members in academia and authorities businesses all over the world.”

This month’s tenth Annual VFS Electric VTOL Symposium — being held Jan. 24–26 in-person in Mesa, Arizona (and in addition nearly) along with the Society’s tenth Biennial Autonomous VTOL Technical Meeting — is the world’s largest and longest-running occasion specializing in the unimaginable promise, progress and challenges of eVTOL plane.

The occasion encompasses a day of plenary periods with 16 leaders from business and authorities addressing each electrical and autonomous VTOL plane. Opening authorities audio system characterize the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), US Army and US Navy, with business leaders from Airbus, Boeing, Archer, Joby, Lilium, Near Earth Autonomy, Overair, Textron and Wisk.

An extra 50 VIP audio system and panelists within the symposium cowl vital subjects relating to eVTOL developments, whereas some 30 technical papers and shows on autonomy, drones, Mars helicopters, eVTOL and superior air mobility (AAM) can be introduced. See http://www.vtol.org/eVTOL2023 for particulars.

A complete of 46 new firms joined VFS throughout 2022, as listed beneath. Descriptions of every firm, together with hyperlinks to their web sites, are discovered within the VFS Corporate Member Directory. Information on the advantages and charges for company membership are posted on the VFS Corporate Membership web page.

Company and Membership Class:

Advanced Aircraft Company: Small Business Class

ANDAR Electromechanical Systems: Small Business Class

Aria Group Inc.: Associate Class

ASKA: Associate Class

AURA Network Systems: Copper Class

AutoFlight Europe GmbH: Associate Class

Avports LLC: Small Business Class

Baldwin Safety & Compliance: Associate Class

Bayards Vertiports: Small Business Class

Canadian Advanced Air Mobility: Affiliate Class

Daedalean Inc: Small Business Class

EHang Intelligent Equipment (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd.: Small Business Class

Electro.Aero Pty Ltd: Small Business Class

Enstrom Helicopter Corporation: Small Business Class

Eve Air Mobility: Small Business Class

FireplacePoint Innovations Center: Associate Class

Intercomp: Associate Class

JHNA: Copper Class

Kitty Hawk Corporation: Small Business Class

Lockheed Martin Government Affairs: Small Business Class

LuftCar LLC: Small Business Class

MAGicALL, Inc.: Small Business Class

MGI Engineering Ltd: Small Business Class

MightyFly: Associate Class

Murzilli Consulting: Associate Class

Odawara Automation, Inc.: Small Business Class

Odys Aviation: Small Business Class

Opener: Copper Class

OSS Air Management Pvt Ltd: Associate Class

Point Lighting Corporation: Small Business Class

Prime Air: Associate Class

PSSC Labs: Small Business Class

Qarbon Aerospace: Silver Class

Ricardo Strategic Consulting: Associate Class

Roland Berger GmbH: Associate Class

Shanghai TCab Technology Co., Ltd: Small Business Class

SZ DJI Technology Co., Ltd: Bronze Class

Technology for Energy Corporation: Associate Class

The Gilmore Group, LLC: Associate Class

UAS Center at SBD: Associate Class

UMILES Next: Small Business Class

VPorts: Small Business Class

Windings: Associate Class

Women & Drones: Associate Class

Xagon Solutions Inc.: Small Business Class

ZEVA: Small Business Class

These new company members embrace firms and associations from all over the world who’re supporting all features of vertical flight. In addition to civil and army rotorcraft developments, such because the US Army’s Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program, eVTOL developments elevated markedly in 2022.

VFS has been the world’s largest technical neighborhood of engineers, technologists and specialists growing vertical flight plane for 80 years. A rising variety of professionals are coming into the vertical flight business and VFS offers them with quite a few alternatives to extend their information and change concepts.

VFS has been on the forefront of what it calls the “Electric VTOL Revolution” since 2014 when it held the world’s first assembly of the eVTOL improvement neighborhood. At the time, the thought of electrical VTOL plane was greeted with widespread skepticism, however rising technical progress, flight demonstrations, authorities validation and personal funding have helped reverse public notion. It is now acknowledged that the vertical flight market is poised for important enlargement over the subsequent few years as eVTOL plane enter service that may have higher efficiency than typical helicopters for sure missions, in addition to decrease working prices and decrease noise.

As of right now, the Society has cataloged over 760 totally different electrical VTOL ideas from greater than 350 firms and innovators on its authoritative World eVTOL Aircraft Directory at http://www.evtol.news. When VFS launched the positioning in April 2017, solely a dozen eVTOL applications had been underneath improvement. Some 170 new designs had been added in 2022 alone. The website at present additionally hosts some 750 eVTOL information tales, together with greater than 300 in-depth articles from the Society’s Vertiflite journal, the main periodical on eVTOL and rotorcraft developments.

VFS was based because the American Helicopter Society in 1943 by the visionaries of the early helicopter business, who believed that technological cooperation and collaboration had been important to help this new kind of plane. Today, historical past is repeating itself, with VFS taking part in an identical position serving to to advance right now’s revolutionary eVTOL plane.

VFS holds the biggest and longest-running vertical flight technical convention on the planet, which this yr can be its 79th Annual Forum & Technology Display on May 16-18, 2023, in West Palm Beach, Florida, USA: http://www.vtol.org/forum.

VFS is @VTOLsociety on social media: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Twitter, Vimeo and YouTube, and has @ElectricVTOL channels on Facebook, Mastodon and Twitter.

The Vertical Flight Society

2700 Prosperity Avenue, Suite 275, Fairfax, VA 22031, USA

1-703-684-6777 • fax: 1-703-739-9279

[email protected] • http://www.vtol.org