Since early summer, the BlackFly eVTOL has been flying above the Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport in tests for the Air Force.
Its flight on Wednesday for the second (and final) day of the third annual National Advanced Air Mobility Industry Forum was probably the first time it flew for an appreciable number of people in the Dayton-Springfield, Ohio, area.
The BlackFly is aptly named, and it should be seen to be appreciated.
It’s a light, nimble, single seat eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) aircraft. Taking off outside the hangar for the National Advanced Air Mobility Center of Excellence, it didn’t need a runway and it made hardly any noise.
At times, its movement seemed closer to floating than flying.
Drivers were slowing down or stopping on West Blee Road to the north as it flew.
Palo Alto, Calif. technology company Pivotal and Beavercreek’s Modern Technology Solutions Inc. (MTSI) have been testing the craft — but also testing the way the vehicle can be controlled remotely and charged with a portable DANNAR battery energy storage truck, which was also visible Wednesday.
AFWERX — the Air Force arm dedicated to discovering and finding useful technologies — wants to know what this craft can and can’t do.
“We’re looking at austere operations,” Josh Lane, MTSI test manager, said at Springfield Wednesday just before the BlackFly took flight. “Imagine a disaster response. That green cable is 240 volts coming out of that (the DANNAR charging system) … What if you need to cycle aircraft and quickly? We’re showing all that.”
“We’re exploring a range of military-type use cases, from logistics and material transport to emergency response and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions,” Jacob Wilson, AFWERX Agility Prime acting branch chief, said in a recent account of Air Force tests of the craft this summer.
The Air Force might be able to use it for intelligence flights, Lane said. It might be used for aerial inspections, deliveries, search and rescue or more.
“What if you had a lost camper in the woods?” he said. “What if you needed to bring them supplies or just find them? If you had a quick response like this to send out, those are the types of use cases that we’re looking at.”
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