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Vahana air taxi makes first test flight in Oregon

Vahana flight
Vahana’s Alpha One air-taxi prototype flies over a test range in eastern Oregon. (Vahana Photo)

This week marked a milestone for Airbus Ventures’ Vahana team, which is developing a self-flying, electric-powered air taxi — also known as a flying car.

Vahana’s 20-foot-wide Alpha One prototype executed its first test flight at the Pendleton Unmanned Aerial Systems Range in eastern Oregon, rising to a height of 16 feet (5 meters) during 53 seconds in the air on Jan. 31.

Another test flight came a day later, Vahana project leader Zach Lovering reported in a Medium posting.

Representatives from the Federal Aviation Administration and Airbus’ A3 advanced-projects division were in attendance, along with the full Vahana team, Lovering said.

“In just under two years, Vahana took a concept sketch on a napkin and built a full-scale, self-piloted aircraft that has successfully completed its first flight,” he said in a news release.

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Boeing and Airbus duel for multibillion-dollar deals

Flydubai 737 MAX 8
Flydubai’s first 737 MAX 8 takes off from Boeing’s Seattle delivery center in July. (Boeing Photo)

There’s nothing like an international air show to bring out the multibillion-dollar sales, and the 2017 Dubai Airshow is setting a new standard.

Boeing’s big deal of the day was an agreement with flydubai, the hometown airline, for the purchase of up to 225 more 737 MAX jets for a list-price value of $27 billion. More than 50 of the first 175 planes will be 737 MAX 10s, the newest and largest variant in the MAX family.

“We are extremely honored that flydubai has selected to be an all-Boeing operator for many years to come,” Kevin McAllister, Boeing Commercial Airlines’ president and CEO, said today in a news release. Flydubai has already taken delivery of 63 737-800s and three 737 MAX 8 airplanes under the terms of previous deals.

Not to be outdone, Airbus announced a memorandum of understanding for the purchase of 430 airplanes in its A320neo family, valued at $49.5 billion at list prices.

The deal was struck with Phoenix-based Indigo Partners, a private equity firm that owns Denver-based Frontier Airlines and also backs Mexico’s Volaris airline, Hungary’s Wizz Air and Chile’s JetSmart.

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Flying car makes itself at home in Oregon

Vahana flying car
Airbus’ Vahana air taxi is set up for testing inside a hangar at the Pendleton Unmanned Aerial Systems Range Mission Control and Innovation Center in eastern Oregon. (Vahana Photo)

Call it a flying car, or an air taxi, or a pilotless passenger aircraft: Whatever it is, Airbus’ Vahana aircraft is ready for flight tests in eastern Oregon after making the trek from the California shop where it was created.

We reported that Vahana was in the Pacific Northwest last week, but in today’s Medium posting, project leader Zach Lovering shares a travelogue as well as pictures showing the journey from the Airbus-backed venture’s headquarters in Santa Clara, known as “The Nest,” to the Pendleton Unmanned Aerial Systems Range Mission Control and Innovation Center.

Flight tests are expected to begin within the next few weeks at Pendleton’s aerial test range, with the blessing of the Federal Aviation Administration. Vahana is designed to be an all-electric, vertical-takeoff-and-landing, autonomously controlled air vehicle with a battery range of 100 kilometers (62 miles). Once it enters service, passengers would use smartphone apps to book rides.

It’s one of many concepts for a new breed of aerial vehicle that are generically called “flying cars” or “air taxis,” even though most of them are nothing like the roadable, flyable vehicles that were dreamt of going back to the 1950s.

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Airbus-Bombardier deal complicates jet dispute

Airbus and Bombardier jets
An artist’s conception puts Bombardier’s CS100 jet alongside Airbus’ A320neo. (Airbus Illustration)

Airbus added a twist to a U.S.-Canada trade dispute by announcing a plan to partner up with Bombardier, the Boeing Co.’s Canadian rival.

The plan calls for Airbus to take on a majority stake in Bombardier’s C Series line of passenger jets, which is due to be hit by U.S. tariffs of nearly 300 percent.

Europe-based Airbus will own 50.01 percent of the C Series limited partnership, leaving Bombardier with about 31 percent and Investissement Quebec with 19 percent. The partnership’s headquarters and primary assembly line will remain in Quebec, but Airbus said it would expand C Series production to its manufacturing site in Alabama.

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Boeing claims edge in jet subsidy battle

Composite wing center
Boeing’s 777X composite wing center was built in Washington state after lawmakers approved tax incentives for the company. (Boeing Photo)

An appeals panel for the World Trade Organization has reversed an earlier ruling against an $8.7 billion Washington state tax incentive program that persuaded the Boeing Co. to build the 777X jet at its plant in Everett, Wash.

Boeing hailed the Sept. 4 reversal as a “significant victory” for the federal Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the U.S. aerospace industry, and a “resounding defeat” for the European Union’s efforts to justify subsidies to Airbus.

The ruling “confirms that the tax treatment Boeing and others are receiving in Washington state is not a prohibited subsidy,” Boeing said in a statement.

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Airbus plans drone deliveries in Singapore

Singapore delivery drone
An artist’s conception shows a delivery drone flying over Singapore. (News Direct via YouTube)

Airbus Helicopters has partnered with Singapore Post for its Skyways drone delivery project, due to begin trials at the National University of Singapore by early 2018. The memorandum of understanding, announced today at the Rotorcraft Asia exhibition in Singapore, follows up on an initial agreement with the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore.

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Airbus gets set to test flying car – in Oregon?

Airbus Group envisions Vahana as an electric-powered vehicle that carries individual passengers or cargo, and takes off and lands vertically. (MTSI Photo)
Airbus Group envisions Vahana as an electric-powered vehicle that carries individual passengers or cargo, and takes off and lands vertically. (MTSI Photo)

Airbus Group says it’s on track to test its prototype self-piloted flying car by the end of the year, and those tests may well take place in Oregon.

The European consortium’s CEO, Tom Enders, talked up the vision for Airbus’ Urban Air Mobility division today at the DLD tech conference in Munich. The plan would let passengers use smartphone apps to book rides in electric-powered, vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicles.

“One hundred years ago, urban transport went underground. Now we have the technological wherewithal to go above ground,” Reuters quoted Enders as saying. “We are in an experimentation phase. We take this development very seriously.”

Airbus has been pursuing its flying-taxi initiative since last year.

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U.S. and Boeing hail WTO ruling against Airbus

Airbus A350 XWB
In today’s report, a compliance panel of the World Trade Organization found that Airbus’ A350 XWB superjumbo jet benefited from European subsidies. (Credit: Airbus)

The World Trade Organization turned up the heat on Europe’s aerospace industry today by ruling that Airbus was continuing to benefit from what’s now estimated at $22 billion in subsidies from the European Union and its member countries.

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman hailed the decision as a “sweeping victory” in a dispute that has been simmering for more than a decade, with the Boeing Co. cast as the principal victim of Airbus’ subsidies.

“This long-awaited decision is a victory for fair trade worldwide, and for U.S. aerospace workers in particular,” Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing’s chairman, president and CEO, said in a statement.

Both of Washington state’s U.S. senators and several House members praised the development as well.

The WTO’s latest action marks one more step toward imposing retaliatory trade sanctions that could amount to as much as $10 billion a year.

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Airbus moves ahead with cargo drone project

Image: Zelator drone
Alexey Medvedev’s Zelator drone was among the winners of a design challenge. (Credit: Local Motors)

Amazon isn’t the only big-name company that’s developing a new kind of drone for cargo delivery: Europe’s Airbus Group is moving ahead with Local Motors on a partnership that takes a decidedly different tack.

The two companies have been crowdsourcing a drone design that parallels what Amazon and lots of other commercial ventures have been working on: an unmanned aircraft system that weighs no more than 55 pounds when fully loaded, and is capable of vertical takeoff and landing as well as fixed-wing forward flight.

The Airbus cargo drone could deliver an 11-pound (5-kilogram) payload to destinations within at least 37 miles (60 kilometers), and a 7-pound (3-kilogram) payload to 62 miles (100 kilometers). Top cruising speed? At least 50 mph.

That compares with Amazon’s plan to deliver packages weighing up to 5 pounds in 30 minutes or less. The drones would roam to destinations within in a radius of 10 miles or more, traveling at cruising speeds of 40 to 50 mph.

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Seattle firm creates showcase for … Airbus?

Image: Airbus Experience Center
Visitors can take the controls in the interactive Briefing Room at the Airbus Experience Center in Washington, D.C., which was designed by a Seattle-based firm. (Credit: Hornall Anderson)

Captain Kirk from the original “Star Trek” is celebrating Star Wars Day today, so maybe it shouldn’t be so surprising that a Seattle-based branding and design firm helped create the Airbus Group’s state-of-the-art Experience Center in the nation’s capital.

Hornall Anderson is behind the look of the exhibit space, which takes up about half of the 20,000-square-foot Airbus office space that opened last month on Pennsylvania Avenue. The Experience Center’s videos and interactive displays highlight facets of the Europe-based consortium’s operations in the United States and worldwide.

“You’ll see our Rosetta spacecraft that landed on a comet,” Airbus Group Chairman and CEO Allan McArtor said in a news release. “You’ll see the Perlan II glider that is going to ride wind currents into the stratosphere. You’ll see U.S. Army helicopters that are built in Mississippi, and A320 single-aisle aircraft being built in Alabama.”

A design company based in Seattle may seem an unusual choice for Airbus, considering that the Boeing Co. is building rival 737 jets down the road in Renton. There are Boeing-centric “experience centers” in Renton and other locales. But Airbus decided that Hornall Anderson, which recently did the rebranding for Seattle-based, all-Boeing Alaska Airlines, was the right firm for the job.

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