In a milestone development towards advanced air mobility (AAM) in Rome, the Volocopter 2X successfully completed its first crewed eVTOL test flight at vertiport deployed at Fiumicino Airport. The Volocopter 2X hovered at the speed of 40 km/hour for 5 minutes at 40 meters before landing. These tests were part of a mobility ecosystem setup at Fiumicino's Leonardo da Vinci International Airport. The test comes exactly a year after the first eVTOL prototype was first showcased in Italy.
The test flight was followed by a vertiport demonstration hosted by UrbanV, a company established by ADR – together with Aéroports de la Côte d'Azur, Aeroporto di Venezia (SAVE), and Aeroporto Guglielmo Marconi di Bologna. The aim was to design and build vertiports internationally.
Aeroporti di Roma, Volocopter, UrbanV, and Atlantia are the pillars behind the first test flight.
The makers claim that the Volocopter's electric air taxi is designed for quick and emission-free passenger flights in urban environments over congested roads and waterways, reflecting Atlantia's and Aeroporti di Roma's plan to play a pioneering role in making the future of aviation increasingly innovative and sustainable.
Giampiero Massolo, Chairman of Atlantia, said: "We are pleased to have helped to bring together a number of companies in which we are shareholders. By working together and contributing to a range of different expertise and areas of excellence, we are creating a new kind of sustainable mobility that did not exist until a few months ago.”
Marco Troncone, CEO of Aeroporti di Roma, commented: "The opening of the first vertiport in Italy and the first crewed eVTOL flight represent a remarkable step towards the activation of the first AAM routes between Fiumicino airport and Rome city center by the end of 2024, ahead of the Jubilee, to offer our contribution to our city and our institutions in welcoming the international tourist flows with a ground-breaking, innovative service."
"We've come from a signed partnership agreement and event series kick-off to a flight test at an operational airport in a little less than a year. With that, we are bringing together all the key stakeholders and regulators to witness this mobility service and technology with their own eyes," said Christian Bauer, Volocopter's Chief Commercial Officer and Interim Chief Financial Officer.
"This test vertiport is particularly significant for UrbanV, representing our first step towards establishing a network of vertiports in the Rome region," commented Carlo Tursi, CEO of UrbanV
The vertiport is developed in compliance with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency's (EASA) 'Prototype Technical Specifications for the Design of VFR Vertiports for Operation with Manned VTOL-Capable Aircraft Certified in the Enhanced Category' and is located within the regulatory sandbox approved by ENAC. It is designed to host various types of tests for both flight and ground operations with an electric system devised to allow testing of various eVTOL charging technologies.