Electra has completed what it describes as first-of-its-kind flights from a heliport on a commercial airport ramp at Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport, using its hybrid-electric EL2 Ultra Short aircraft to test point-in-space procedures and dedicated instrument routings across Virginia Tech/Montgomery Regional Airport, Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport and Allan C. Perkinson/Blackstone Army Airfield, plus two further sites in Newport News and Richmond. At each location the aircraft took off and landed on small heliports, vertiports, taxiways and other access points historically usable only by helicopters, conducted in coordination with the FAA’s eVTOL and Advanced Air Mobility Integration Pilot Program, the Virginia Smart Airspace Program, Virginia Tech, the Virginia Department of Aviation and PennDOT, the lead pilot-programme participant for Virginia operations. “What happened in Virginia provides a glimpse into the future of flight,” said Marc Allen, Electra’s Chief Executive Officer. “We showed that fixed-wing, Ultra Short aircraft can use vertical flight landing areas and a new generation of instrument procedures to reach places conventional airplanes were never designed to access.”

The flights build on more than a year of programme development under the Virginia Smart Airspace Program, during which Electra and its partners designed flexible vertiport and heliport approaches, evaluated new approach and departure instrument procedures, and worked through new air traffic concepts for off-runway landings, collecting operational data throughout to compare aircraft performance against procedure requirements. “This is the kind of practical flight testing needed to move Advanced Air Mobility from concept to operational reality,” said Tombo Jones, Director of Virginia Tech’s Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership. Dr Parker Vascik, Electra’s Director of Product Strategy, called it “a breakthrough moment for Advanced Air Mobility,” adding that the company had demonstrated “the core enabling principle of Ultra Short aircraft feeding into major airports in a manner that complements rather than burdens the air traffic system,” by using airspace and airport surfaces currently underused by conventional traffic.

WHAT MAKES ELECTRA’S ULTRA SHORT DIFFERENT

The tested EL2 is a smaller precursor to Electra’s flagship nine-seat EL9 Ultra Short, which the company says will deliver helicopter-like access with the efficiency of fixed-wing flight, built around what Electra calls its Rule of Six: expanded access, quiet operations, meaningful payload, practical range, safety and affordability. The company says its Ultra Short technology offers 2.5 times the payload and ten times the range of helicopters and eVTOLs at 70 percent lower operating costs. Electra’s strategic investors include Lockheed Martin Ventures, Honeywell Aerospace and Safran, alongside Prysm Capital and the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation, and its contracted customers include the US Air Force, Army, Navy and NASA, alongside more than 2,200 letters of intent from over 60 commercial customers spanning airlines and helicopter operators.