PIONEERING

THE URBAN AIR TAXI

REVOLUTION
1.0
TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE CASE FOR URBAN AIR TRANSPORTATION 3

THE URBAN AIR TAXI MISSION 4

SAFETY & CERTIFICATION 5

NOISE EMISSIONS 8
RANGE & SPEED 10
OPERATING COSTS 16
COST OF ENERGY 16
COST OF BATTERIES 18
OTHER COST DRIVERS 19
VOLOCOPTER ON COSTS 21
NUMBER OF SEATS 22
DESIGN FOR USABILITY 22

CONCLUSION 25

CONTRIBUTORS 27
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 3

THE CASE FOR URBAN AIR TRANSPORTATION

The next decade is forecast to be the greatest period of urban migration in

human history. By 2030, more than 60 % of the world’s population will live in
cities. Ground infrastructure, which is already operating at full capacity in many
areas, is struggling to keep up with this urban growth. We believe that one
answer to the challenges of urbanization is to take to the sky and unleash air
travel in urban environments as a viable alternative to ground transportation.

In this article we will make a case for why we at Volocopter believe that we are
on the cusp of a technological revolution enabling urban air mobility (UAM)
at scale. We will focus on the requirements for the urban air taxi mission and
discuss how we specifically designed the Volocopter, our electric vertical take-
off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, with this mission in mind.

It is important to note that, in this discussion, we will focus on the intra-city trans-
portation use case: flying passengers within cities, where the greatest pain points
will be alleviated. We will not be addressing the requirements for high-speed
regional shuttles, which will ferry passengers between metropolitan regions.

THE RENAISSANCE OF ELECTRIC FLIGHT

Before diving in, we want to reflect on the renaissance underway in electric pro–
pulsion, the technology that will unlock urban air mobility.

The concept of electric propulsion in aviation is nearly as old as aviation itself.

The first electric-powered aircraft debuted in 1917 (the tethered PKZ-1) and
electric aviation has been a hobbyist’s alternative in the interim years. Now, with
the advancements in multirotor distributed electric propulsion systems and the
sophisticated controls to manage them, electric propulsion has finally become
a viable alternative to hydrocarbon-based systems.
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 4

THE URBAN AIR TAXI MISSION

The mission of the urban air taxi is to transport passengers and luggage from
point A to B within a defined urban metropolitan area at a price that is compe–
titive with alternative transportation modes.

In order to accomplish this mission, an eVTOL will need to at least address the
requirements in the non-exhaustive list below.

1. Safety & Certification: Urban air taxis need to be as safe as any other
commercial aircraft and consequently be designed to meet equivalent
safety standards.

2. Noise Emissions: In order to fly in the city and take-off/land in populated

areas, the urban air taxi will have to comply with demanding noise restric-
tions to achieve public acceptance.

3. Range & Speed: The air taxi needs to be able to cover the most popular
high-traffic routes in major cities, like the airport to city-center route.
These trips should be covered at a reasonably high speed in order to save
time compared to ground transportation alternatives.

4. Operating Costs: To enable a viable and scalable business that addresses

a meaningful customer base, air taxi operating costs should be low enough
to offer competitively-priced transportation services.

5. Number of Seats: The number of passenger seats is a key design driver

and needs to match the needs of the urban air taxi mission.

6. Design for Usability: Passengers need to be able to embark, travel, and

disembark comfortably and safely. This will entail design requirements for
cabin noise levels, vibration, climatic conditioning, perceived safety, etc.

We will address each of these requirements in detail below and elaborate

on how Volocopter addresses them in its development of a viable urban air
taxi product.
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 5

Figure 1 The Volocopter deployed as an urban air taxi

SAFETY & CERTIFICATION

Safety is paramount in designing next-generation eVTOL aircraft for an urban

air taxi mission. The service will only achieve public acceptance if it can be shown
to operate safely. To this end, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA)
published the SC-VTOL-01 “Proposed Special Condition for small-category
VTOL aircraft” in October 2018, which outlines the airworthiness standards for
eVTOLs. (The final version is expected to be published by EASA in June 2019.
Data shown in Figure 2 reflect updates towards the final version, which have
been shared at VTOL special conditions briefing by EASA on Feb. 27, 2019.)
In this document, EASA defines required safety objectives for urban air taxis,
which are basically equivalent to those for other commercial aircraft. Details can
be found in Figure 2, where “Category Enhanced” applies to urban air taxis. We
applaud EASA for proposing explicit regulations for this new market and for
recognizing that upholding the highest safety standards is key to market success.

Maximum FA ILU RE CO N D I TI O N C L ASS I FI C ATI O N

Passenger
Seating
Configuration Minor Major Hazardous Catastrophic

Category ≤ 10-3 ≤ 10-5 ≤ 10-7 ≤ 10-9

0 to 9
Enhanced FDAL D FDAL C FDAL B FDAL A

Category ≤ 10-3 ≤ 10-5 ≤ 10-7 ≤ 10-9

7 to 9
Basic FDAL D FDAL C FDAL B FDAL A

≤ 10-3 ≤ 10-5 ≤ 10-7 ≤ 10-8

2 to 6
FDAL D FDAL C FDAL C FDAL B

≤ 10-3 ≤ 10-5 ≤ 10-6 ≤ 10-7

0 to 1
FDAL D FDAL C FDAL C FDAL C

Quantitative safety objectives are expressed per flight hour

Figure 2 Safety objectives for eVTOL aircraft (EASA) according to VTOL Special Condition Briefing
27-Feb-2019
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 6

Practically speaking, when designing a new aircraft to these standards, we

must take into account all aspects of the system, including (but not limited to)
product design, crew training, maintenance aspects, manufacturing, air traffic
management deployment, etc. In this white paper, we will limit the discussion
to the safety of the vehicle itself.

In principle, the minimum safety requirements for air taxis will be standardized,
and thus should be identical for each vehicle. These standards are set and enforced
by international aviation agencies like EASA and the FAA. Any vehicle that fails
to meet the safety requirements will not be permitted to fly in commercial
operations. We would therefore expect that safety, while being an entry-barrier,
is not going to be a differentiating factor. However, if we look into the details,
there can be substantial differences. This is because historically, mission-specific
requirements are not outlined in the type certification requirements. Instead, they
are specified in additional operational requirements that need to be met by the
operator in order to receive approval for a specific mission.

EASA has defined this in the SC-VTOL certification basis. Simply put, the
SC-VTOL foresees different levels of safety requirements depending on the
intended mission of the aircraft. An aircraft used only for sports and leisure activity
outside of the city is required to meet safety levels that are up to 100 times
lower than an aircraft used for commercial air taxi services within a city (i.e.
compare “basic” and “enhanced” requirements in Figure 2).

Therefore, when we compare different eVTOL concepts, we need to look at

them within the context of their intended mission. Many of the eVTOLs marketed
as “air taxis” today, are actually more likely intended to be “sports & leisure”
type aircraft. By design they are unlikely to meet the strict safety requirements
for urban air taxis. Both, the FAA and EASA, offer ways to operate such aircraft
non-commercially outside urban areas (e. g. when classified as “ultralight”
aircraft).

In developing the Volocopter we take safety into account for every aspect of
the design. We believe that safety and simplicity are closely correlated. Thus,
the simpler the architecture, the more likely that the aircraft will gain certifica-
tion. Specifically, the Volocopter has 18 motors fitted with fixed-pitch rotors,
which have only one degree of freedom: the rpm (revolutions per minute) at
which they operate. There are no tilting components in this highly-redundant
propulsion system, which is extremely robust vis-à-vis individual motor failure.
In other words, the Volocopter can safely end its mission even after multiple
motor failures. This essentially enables the vehicle to meet the safety standards
specified by EASA. Similar levels of redundancy are designed into the Volocop-
ter flight control system and its onboard data networks. The Volocopter is one
of the few eVTOLs actually designed to meet all the safety requirements for
operating in urban air taxi missions.
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 7

Figure 3 Volocopter undergoing flight trials in an urban environment

Many different eVTOL architectures have been proposed. In our view, the more
complex a system becomes, the more difficult and expensive it will be to show that
the system will have the required low failure probability required for certification,
i.e. a failure probability of one in a billion flight hours for critical systems functions.
There are some interesting architectures with tilting wings, tilting rotors and
variable pitch propellers. These can all be made to work and are as such amazing
technologies. However, designing them in a way that demonstrates the required
low failure probability is likely to be difficult.

As an example, imagine how difficult it would be to show continued safe flight

operations if a tilt rotor were to become jammed halfway through a tilt. Even
something as basic as a retractable landing gear or an electric wheel brake can
be extremely hard to certify, because malfunction can typically lead to a loss
of the aircraft.

To summarize our position: simplicity = safety = certifiability.

 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 8

NOISE EMISSIONS

The next key design driver for any urban air taxi is the noise signature. One
of the reasons that helicopter flights over many cities are strictly limited today
is because of the “noise pollution” that they cause. If air taxis are to be accepted
by the people living and working in the cities they fly in, they will need to be
designed and operated in a way that strictly limits the noise level audible on
the ground. Plus, the generated noise should be subjectively non-disturbing.
Certain frequencies are perceived as more disturbing than others, regardless of
the actual decibel levels of the noise. Consider the high-pitch sound of a legacy
helicopter tail rotor as an example.

In Uber’s Elevate white paper1 , noise is identified as one of the major differen­
tiators and vehicle design drivers. Further studies by Porsche Consulting2 ,
Roland Berger3 , and McKinsey4 support this analysis. Due to the laws of physics,
air taxis with low disc loading and low rotor tip speed produce less noise than
those with higher disc loading and faster rotor tip speeds. The rotor tip speed
and number of rotor blades defines the frequency signature and in combination
with the disc loading defines the overall noise level of the rotor.

In simplified terms, this means that an air taxi that has a small rotor surface relative
to its weight is likely to be very loud. This is because the weight of the aircraft
will need to be carried by accelerating air up to very high speeds using a very
small rotor surface. On the other hand, an air taxi with a rather large rotor
surface relative to its weight will have a better noise signature, as it can deliver
the required lift by accelerating the air with less speed over a larger surface.
In addition, keeping rotor tip speeds low is another key to improving the noise
signature.

1 Uber Elevate; “Fast-Forwarding to a Future of On-Demand Urban Air Transportation”; October 2016
2 Porsche Consulting; “The Future of Vertical Mobility”; March 2018
3 Roland Berger GmbH; “Urban air mobility: The rise of a new mode of transportation”;
November 2018
4 McKinsey Company for Future Mobility; “Taxiing for take-off: The flying cab in your future”;
January 2019
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 9

Human Powered Multicopter Jet Pack

like a glider Noise like a racing car

balanced Noise spectrum very disturbing
0.7 kW Power required 150 kW

Figure 4 Difference in noise lifting the same payload (Source: Aerovelo, Martin Jet Pack)

To visualize this relationship between disc loading, tip speed and noise, consider
the following two applications for lifting the weight of one person. The slow-mov-
ing large rotors of the human powered multicopter can hardly be heard, while
the “jet pack” solution with its small, fast-spinning rotors generates a lot of noise
(compare to Figure 4).

The above holds true in the critical vertical take-off and landing phase, where the
distance to people on the ground is smallest. In cruise flight at sufficient speed,
generating lift using wings may be an efficient way to reduce noise signature,
although vertical noise emissions by conventional propellers may negate part of
this advantage.

When looking at the urban air taxi mission, the most critical phases in terms of
noise emission are take-off and landing. It is in these phases that the aircraft has
the greatest impact on the surrounding area and people. Aircraft like the Volo-
copter with a large rotor area and low disc loading will be more likely to comply
with strict noise regulations and be granted access to densely populated areas.
It is important to note that a large rotor disc area can be achieved by using a few
large rotors or numerous smaller rotors. Slower tip speeds can be achieved by
using a large number of small rotors, which in turn reduces noise coming from
the rotor tips. In addition, a large number of smaller rotors is perceived to be
quieter than one larger rotor. This is because various weak noise sources spread
noise over a broad frequency spectrum, which is less disturbing to the human
ear than one prominent noise source.
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 10

3x quieter
>100
90 dB(A)
82 dB(A)
76 dB(A)
73 dB(A)
65 dB(A)
50–60 dB(A)
45 dB(A)
dB(A)

Washing Normal Volocopter Average road Volocopter R22 Gas-powered B747-400

hands speech hovering noise exposure landing hovering Lawn Mower Takeoff at 2 mi
at a distance in New York at a distance at a distance at 3 ft (NY Subway Train)
of 75 m of 30 m of 75 m

Figure 5 The Volocopter can be integrated into the city without adding significantly more
noise pollution

Volocopter has taken all of the above factors into account in the design of its
air taxi. As a result, Volocopter has emerged as the air taxi with the lowest noise
signature that is best suited to fly into the populated centers of megacities
without adding to the present noise pollution.

RANGE & SPEED

One of the most hotly-debated questions about urban air taxis focuses on the
required range of an eVTOL for the urban air taxi mission. Compared to con­
ventional aircraft, urban air taxis fly very short distances and thus only require
a limited range to offer useful capabilities.

Uber’s Elevate paper suggests that urban air taxis will mainly be useful to so-called
“mega commuters,” people who commute more than 160 km per day, therefore
making a minimum useful range for these commuters half of that distance
(80 km). The paper also suggests that there would be no opportunity to re-
charge the batteries between flights, which means that the air taxi would have
to fly the return trip (160 km) without recharging. The authors assert that for
shorter range commutes, the ground infrastructure requirements would be too
cumbersome for practical purposes.
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 11

Figure 6 Thanks to its low noise signature, the Volocopter can fly into densely populated areas

Volocopter takes a different view. The Elevate paper focuses on a very specific
use case (mega commuters) in a limited number of geographic areas. However,
there are a multitude of urban air taxi use cases that exist globally. In our view,
many timesaving routes can be operated efficiently and economically with limited
infrastructure at a much shorter range. Examples include connecting key geo-
graphic locations, like airports, shopping malls, business districts, train stations
and hotels. Consequently, urban air taxis can be used for purposes other than
the daily commute use case, e. g. to shuttle passengers between a business
district and an airport, or between a shopping mall and a major hotel, etc. In
fact, studies suggest that the inner-city air taxi mission represents the highest
demand and thus business potential.

Volocopter’s in-house analysis found that most megacities have an urban area
spanning less than 30 km around the geographic center, while most of the major
airports serving these cities are within 30 km of the city center. More specifically,
70 % of the analyzed megacities have a major airport within 20 km of the city
center (e. g. Melbourne or Mumbai), while 93  % have a major airport within 30 km
of the city center (e. g. Houston or Guangzhou).
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 12

Examples illustrating this point are outlined below.

GIS population density of selected cities of our top 100 city list

New York City Los Angeles Paris Tokyo Shanghai

(18 m population) (12 m population) (11 m population) (38 m population) (24 m population)

30 km 30 km 30 km 30 km 30 km
15 km 15 km 15 km 15 km 15 km

Sāo Paulo London Mumbai Beijing Population Density

(21 m population) (10 m population) (21 m population) (22 m population) (in ppl/km2)

30,000–150,000
30 km 30 km 30 km 30 km
15 km
7,000–30,000
15 km 15 km 15 km
5,200–7,000
3,350–5,200
1,500–3,350
0–1,500

Figure 7 Most major cities have an urban area spanning less than 30 km around the geographic center
(Source: ARCGIS)

With its initial range the Volocopter serves 93 % of all airport

to city center routes of our top 100 city list1
Percentage
9% 30 % 53 % 73 % 85 % 93 % of top 100 cities
worldwide

Number
of cities

20

10

0 9 21 23 20 12 8

Volocopter
2-Seater

Distance to
5 km 10 km 15 km 20 km 25 km 30 km city center

San Diego Las Vegas Singapore Melbourne London Houston City examples
SAN LAS SIN MEL LHR IAH IATA Code
Mumbai Dubai Rio de Los Angeles Beijing Guangzhou
BOM DXB Janeiro LAX PEK CAN
GIG

1) 7 of the 100 cities are not accessible because of a respective airport to city center distances of up to 48 km.

Figure 8 With the Volocopter’s initial range, most key airport – city center routes can be served
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 13

This view is generally supported by studies from Roland Berger5 and Porsche
Consulting6 that forecast a larger UAM market share for intra-city air taxis and
airport shuttles than for intercity flights.

Number of cities with UAM operation worldwide (forecast)

Passanger drones in UAM operations
[’000#]

Intercity flights
98
Air taxis

Airport shuttles
75

53

28

12
3
0

2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050

Note: Estimated that around 100 cities will have UAM operation in 2050 Source:

Figure 9 Forecasted number of cities with UAM operations worldwide (Source: Roland Berger)

Looking at a practical example, we could imagine implementing an airport

shuttle between John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and Midtown
Manhattan, which is a notoriously cumbersome route to travel by road or by
rail. The distance through the air is less than 30 km and can be covered by an
air taxi in 20–25 minutes, whereas according to cellphone data7 90 % of ground
trips take longer than 60 minutes and roughly 50 % of trips take longer than
90 minutes. This represents a huge potential for time saving! In addition, this
trip could already be implemented under current regulations utilizing existing
helicopter routes.

5 Roland Berger GmbH; “Urban air mobility: The rise of a new mode of transportation”;
November 2018
6 Porsche Consulting; “The Future of Vertical Mobility”; March 2018
7 www.streetlightdata.com Analytics tool
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 14

Airspace Restriction

Midtown West
Airspace Restriction

29 km distance
ø 553 flights/day

JFK

Figure 10 Example of an urban air taxi route for New York (JFK-Manhatten)
(Source: streetlight data)

47 238 157 111

0% 10 % 20 % 30 % 40 % 50 % 60 % 70 % 80 % 90 % 100 %

less than 60 min 60–90 min 90–120 min 120+ min

Figure 11 Statistics on trip times from JFK Airport to Midtown Manhattan (Source: streetlight data)

From the above analysis, we at Volocopter have determined the range require-
ment for our Volocopter air taxi to be somewhere between 30 and 35 km. This
will enable the Volocopter to offer inner-city taxi and airport shuttle services in
more than 90 % of megacities.
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 15

The corollary consideration to range is time saving. Ultimately, in order to serve

as a viable mass-market transportation solution, air taxis must save customers
time compared to a road trip. In short, speed is important. Even without traffic
jams, it is rare to travel within megacities at an average speed of more than
50 km/h. It is even rarer to find a direct straight-line connection between two
major locations inside such a city. This means that using ground transport, a
30 km trip will take from 35 minutes to more than 120 minutes if there are traffic
jams or no efficient routing.

With a Volocopter traveling at an average speed of 80 to 100 km/h, a 35 km

trip would take 18 to 22 minutes. This represents a time saving of at least 50 %!
Faster speeds may further reduce travel times. However, when air taxis are
operating at low altitudes over densely populated areas there will be limitations
on the speed for the following reasons:

• Noise: This issue is addressed in detail above. Faster aircraft will generate
more noise.

• Collision-avoidance: It is reasonable to assume that other aircraft and

drones will be operating in the same airspace (e. g. camera drones, parcel
delivery drones, helicopters providing emergency medical services, etc.).
It is paramount to ensure these aircraft share the airspace safely. Detecting
and avoiding other aircraft will be more difficult with increasing speed.
This is because the required detection range increases linearly with higher
speed (e. g. imagine spotting a parcel drone that is only 1 km away).

• Bird strike damage: Flying birds are an important consideration in low-

altitude airspace. Lower speeds will be necessary to enable timely detec-
tion and avoid collisions. In addition, potential damage caused by birds
striking an aircraft increases quadratically with the aircraft speed. Hence,
limiting speed will be one way of avoiding “armoring” air taxis (which
comes at a high weight expense).
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 16

Flight time at different cruise speed scenarios

30,00

25,00 80 km/h

100 km/h
20,00

8 min
15,00 150 km/h

200 km/h
10,00

5,00

0,00
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30

Flight Time Distance horizontal

(min) (km)

Figure 12 Travel time savings relative to speed of travel

In practice, when designing an air taxi, tradeoffs need to be made between range,
speed, noise, weight, and other factors. At Volocopter, we have found that with
a cruise speed in the range of 80 to 100 km/h, we can offer a service that saves
significant trip time while enabling low-cost, safe operation at low altitudes and
offering a design that is the benchmark for low noise signature.

OPERATING COSTS

The viability of urban air taxis as a complementary mode of transportation will

depend largely on the level of pricing that can be offered to the end customer.
The high operating cost of legacy helicopters is one of the reasons they are not
widely used for airborne taxi services today.

What can we do to ensure low operating costs for air taxi services? For simpli–
city, this white paper will focus on technical, design-related issues. However, it is
clear that there are additional factors, like landing fees, that also contribute to
the equation.
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 17

COST OF ENERGY
The most obvious cost component of an electrically powered air taxi is the cost
of electrical energy consumed to carry out the flight. While the actual cost of
electrical energy may vary from one geographic region to another, it is safe to
say that a more energy-efficient design will lead to lower operating costs. If we
take the need for vertical take-off and landing as a prerequisite, a large part of
the energy will be consumed during these energy-intensive phases in which
the air taxi needs to hover and maneuver at low air speed. During this phase,
all lift needs to be generated by the propulsion system. These flight phases will
be especially challenging for air taxis that are optimized for larger passenger
capacity and range. A larger number of passengers will contribute to a higher
take-off weight, while the bigger battery for longer range will also add consid-
erable weight. The high weight will require a large amount of thrust, and power,
to maintain flight. Unfortunately, the level of required power in vertical take-off
increases more than linearly with the take-off weight (momentum theory), while
a smaller rotor area also leads to a significant increase in power requirements.

The following example illustrates how significant this is. A typical transformative
eVTOL design may have a power requirement ranging from 500 to 1000 kW for
take-off and landing. If we assume just three minutes for take-off and landing
per flight, this results in energy consumption of 25 to 50 kWh – just for take-off
and landing! This is equivalent to the full battery charge of an electric car (e. g.
Tesla Model 3 SR with 50 kWh battery) consumed in just three minutes. Most
available battery technologies cannot reliably deliver this level of power within
the weight and size limits of the aircraft design (i.e. it would require a very large,
heavy battery). To illustrate once more, the 50 kWh required for an eVTOL would
require more than 200 kg of battery chemistry. This does not include the cruise
phase of the flight nor does it take into account the package weight of the
battery (assuming an optimistic 250 Wh/kg on cell-level).

The Volocopter, on the other hand, can complete a full 30 km urban air taxi mis-
sion including take-off, landing and cruise phase with a similar amount of energy
thanks to its very high energy efficiency in the low-speed phases of flight. As a
result, the energy and battery contribution to the overall operating costs will be
relatively low for the Volocopter.

The conclusion that multicopter concepts are preferable for short- to mid-range
missions is generally supported by the NASA study “Observation from Explo-
ration of VTOL Urban Air Mobility Designs” published by Wayne Johnson and
Christopher Silva8 .

8 NASA Ames Research Center; “Observation from Exploration of VTOL Urban Air Mobility Designs”;
October 2018
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 18

Hover vertical lift efficiency as a function of disc loading

8
Volocopter

kg/kW lb/hp

12

6 Helicopter

5
8

Tilt rotor
4

Tilt wing

3 Lift-fan

4
Direct lift
2

1 10 100 1 000 10 000 lb/ft2

0

4.88 10 100 1 000 10 000 48 824 kg/m2

Hover lift efficiency, Disc loading, gross weight / thrust area

gross weight / power

Source: NASA SP-2000-4517, "The History of the XV-15 Tilt Rotor Research Aircraft: From Concept to Flight"

Figure 13 Lift efficiency in vertical take-off and landing (Source: NASA, edited by Volocopter)

COST OF BATTERIES
Directly related to energy consumption is the cost attributable to the battery
depreciation per flight. Although automotive applications have become very
good at designing batteries that are optimized for long life, the severe weight
constraints of air taxi applications mean that trade-offs need to be made. These
often favor battery systems with a lower lifetime that are capable of delivering
higher power and energy densities (i.e. capable of supplying high continuous
power). More specifically, common techniques to extend battery life in EVs in-
clude reducing thermal stress using a sophisticated liquid-based battery cooling
system and reducing load on individual battery cells by over-sizing the battery.
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 19

Moreover, an EV battery may be designed for a car that primarily operates in the
middle of the charge spectrum, never completely charging or discharging the
battery (full charge/discharge cycles lead to reduced lifetime). These techniques
are difficult to implement in air taxis because they inevitably lead to additional
weight.

For the above reasons, it is fair to assume that battery lifetime in an air taxi
(counted in charge/discharge cycles before 80 % of the original capacity is
reached) will be far lower than in a typical EV. Current commercial battery cells
for air taxi applications typically offer between 600 and 800 cycles, although
this number may be lower in poorly designed battery systems or under unfavor-
able operating conditions. This is assuming that the batteries are charged and
cooled between flights (e. g. swapped). The battery life will suffer further if fast
charging is applied in between flights. This means that the cost of the battery
pack needs to be amortized in 600 to 800 flights, which makes it a major
contributor to operating costs even if EV costing levels are reached (imagine
20–30 or more flights per day to visualize what this means for battery lifetime).

Main drivers for operating cost

Preliminary city transport economics per seat

P R E LIM IN A RY COST BREAKDOWN VOLO COP T E R B AT T E RY COSTS

initially +5 years

Low capacity = low amortization

• High mission efficiency
• Capacity similar to Tesla Model 3 SR

Increased lifetime
• No fast charging
• Operating at moderate discharge rates
• Low thermal stress

battery costs
other costs

Figure 14 The battery is one of the main drivers for operating costs. The Volocopter and its
infrastructure are designed to minimize the cost impact
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 20

OTHER COST DRIVERS

Additional factors contributing to high operating costs include inspection, main-
tenance, and overhaul. With legacy helicopters, there are many items that re-
quire frequent inspection, maintenance and overhaul (including turbine engines,
gear boxes, hydraulic systems, complex main rotor systems, etc.). Consequently,
hybrid-propulsion eVTOLs relying on turbine engines (or turbo-generators) will
suffer from some of the same high cost issues as legacy helicopters. The same
may well apply to complicated tilting mechanisms, where actuators are typically
safety-critical components designed for a limited number of tilting cycles and
requiring frequent inspection/overhaul. One might argue that in the digital age,
sophisticated, data-driven health monitoring systems will make the need for
inspections obsolete. Looking at practical examples however, proving that such
systems will detect failures before disaster strikes is far from trivial and requires
operational experience to obtain certification. Hence, the more mechanical com-
ponents with limited operating life that are implemented in a particular air taxi
design, the higher the costs attributed to performing inspections, maintenance
and overhaul (this does not include the indirect cost of aircraft downtime during
maintenance).

Finally, the cost of developing and producing an air taxi will need to be amor-
tized over its useful lifetime. This issue is especially tricky for short-range air taxis
for the following reason: Aircraft lifetime is typically calculated in duty cycles.
For an airliner, a cycle may consist of one multi-hour flight between two airports,
whereas take-off and landing are the penalizing phases for aircraft. For the sake
of argument, let’s assume a typical short-haul airliner may see 4–5 cycles per
day. By contrast, an air taxi operating just 12 hours per day on 20–30 km routes
may experience as many as 20–40 duty cycles per day. This means that when we
assume identical design standards, air taxis will reach their service life limits one
order of magnitude faster than typical airliners. Therefore, their costs will have to
be amortized over a much shorter period of calendar time.

Generally speaking, air taxi designs that include many high-cost components
or are difficult to manufacture at scale will incur significant amortization cost.
Typical examples of expensive components with limited life include gear boxes,
overly-complicated electric motors, retractable landing gears, and sophisticated
sensor suites (e. g. high-end lidar systems).

Moreover, it is worth noting that most air taxi designs proposed today, including
the Volocopter, make use of carbon composite materials. Building a prototype
aircraft in a manual process may be feasible, but many companies have histori-
cally failed in the economic upscaling of their composite production processes.
This could quickly lead to the airframe becoming an expensive contributor in the
overall cost equation.
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 21

Figure 15 The Volocopter uses a battery swapping technique to maximize battery lifetime,
and minimize turnaround time

VOLOCOPTER ON COSTS
Finally, let us conclude with an explanation of how the Volocopter design leads
to best-in-class, low operating costs. As previously mentioned, the Volocopter
is specifically designed for short-haul missions in which the vertical take-off and
landing phases contribute heavily to the overall energy consumed and wing-
born flight does not pay off. The Volocopter can fly a complete mission with less
than 50 kWh of energy. Battery cost is managed by maximizing useful battery
life. A direct consequence is that Volocopter does not apply fast-charging to its
batteries. Instead, it swaps the batteries after every flight. This allows the batter-
ies to be charged at optimal (low) C-rates, while being properly balanced and
reducing thermal stress by using efficient, ground-based cooling systems.

In addition, the Volocopter was specifically designed to exclude high-main-

tenance systems that drive the maintenance cost of legacy helicopters.
Direct-drive electric motors and fixed pitch rotors were chosen and high-main-
tenance tilting mechanisms were avoided. For the same reason, a skid-based
landing gear system was chosen over a wheeled solution with active brakes.
The carbon composite air frame was designed to enable high-volume production
using established aerospace manufacturing techniques. All of this helps keep
periodic inspection and maintenance to an absolute minimum.
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 22

NUMBER OF SEATS

The number of seats an air taxi offers is one of the key design drivers. A larger
number of seats offers the potential to transport more paying passengers and
spread operating costs over more seats. But at the same time, more seats have a
significantly negative impact on the overall weight of the air taxi and the power
required for vertical take-off and landing. As explained in a previous section, this
higher power requirement will likely translate into a higher noise profile during
take-off and landing. In our view, these circumstances favor smaller air taxis
with fewer seats for missions in a densely populated urban area where low noise
emissions are paramount.

Another aspect is that having more seats is only economical if a high passenger
load factor is achieved. Therefore, the key question is how many people can be
transported on a typical air taxi trip. Even though air taxis are not commonplace
today, we have some good data to use as a basis for our analysis.

NASA published a paper in 20169 called “Silicon Valley as an Early Adopter

for On-Demand Civil VTOL Operations.” This paper references data from the
American Travel Survey, which shows that 70 % of all road trips under 160 km
involved one single person, while the average load factor is 1.3 people. The data
referenced in this paper also shows that load factors are very similar for conven-
tional take-off and landing (CTOL) air taxis. Anecdotal evidence from the few
helicopter air taxis in service today confirm these load factors.

There is no indication that load factors for a typical trip by air taxi will differ sig-
nificantly from ground taxis. For this reason, the Volocopter has been designed
to have two seats. Initially, one will be occupied by a pilot, which enables 70 % of
typical short distance trips to be serviced. In a second step, as autonomy-enabled
solutions become viable, two passenger seats will become available, enabling
the Volocopter to perform the vast majority of the urban air taxi missions.

DESIGN FOR USABILITY

In order to become a common everyday mode of transport, eVTOLs must be

practical in their design. Most general aviation aircraft are cumbersome when
it comes to passenger entry and exit. Unfortunately, this factor has left its mark
on many of the current designs being presented as air taxis. In our view, nobody
ordering an air taxi ride would expect to have to climb into the cockpit like a jet
fighter pilot or step around rotors installed at knee height.

9 NASA Langley Research Center; “Silicon Valley as an Early Adopter for On-Demand Civil VTOL
Operations”; June 2016
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 23

Figure 16 The Volocopter is designed to provide practicability and comfort for passengers

So, what makes an air taxi design practical? Embarking and disembarking need
to be convenient, safe, and comfortable for people of any age. This should be as
convenient for elderly passengers as it is for younger ones and equally comfort-
able for people dressed in business or casual clothing.

Safe embarking and disembarking imply that the passenger does not move
through the rotor or propeller area (regarded as a crucial safety issue for pas-
sengers and aircraft), even when the blades are not turning. Next, the passenger
should have sufficient space inside the cabin along with comfortable seating.
Some of the “air taxis” demonstrated thus far show two persons crammed side
by side into a small capsule. While we do not believe that paying customers
will accept this lack of comfort for very long, this also constitutes a safety issue,
since the passenger could easily interfere with the pilot’s flight controls. Pas-
sengers should also be able to bring a reasonable amount of luggage onboard.
There would also need to be a practical way to stow the bags to avoid becoming
a safety hazard for the pilot, passengers, or aircraft.

Another issue that seems to have attracted little attention in air taxi designs is
the fact that many of the powerful propulsion systems produce extensive cabin
noise due to high disc loading and tip speed. It is questionable whether high
noise will be acceptable to travelers expecting to use their cell phones and make
conference calls while in transit. The powerful motors required for vertical take-
off also tend to cause heavy vibrations in the cabin. In legacy helicopters, this is
often extremely uncomfortable and is partially compensated by active or passive
anti-vibration systems that come with a weight penalty. Travelers in an air taxi
will find it difficult to check e-mails or a news feed if they are being constantly
shaken by excessive vibrations.
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 24

Figure 17 A practical design for urban air taxis

Another issue involves air conditioning systems, which are not very common
in small general aviation aircraft but may well be expected by passengers that
are accustomed to commuting with a ride hailing service. Unfortunately, these
environmental control systems (ECS) consume large amounts of energy and are
generally heavy, which can have an impact on the maximum range of an air taxi.

We at Volocopter consider all these aspects to be key factors for a comfort-

able and safe use of this new transport technology. The Volocopter specifically
improves embarking and disembarking without interference by the rotor disc
area. Rotors are mounted overhead to avoid direct contact. Boarding a Volocop-
ter is similar to getting in and out of a car. The Volocopter is designed with an
integrated luggage compartment so that passengers can comfortably stow their
carry-on luggage when embarking. An air conditioning system is integrated into
the design and the Volocopter noise signature is intrinsically low.
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 25

CONCLUSION

Urban air taxis need to meet clearly delineated design and certification require­
ments to be effectively used for their intended purpose. The Volocopter is
specifically designed for urban air taxi missions and offers a great combination
of characteristics needed to fulfill all key air taxi requirements, in our humble
opinion.

The Volocopter is designed to comply with the specific airworthiness require-

ments for intra-city commercial air transport and serves as an industry bench-
mark for low noise emissions. Hence, it may go where other, more noisy aircraft,
cannot go. With a range of more than 30 km, it can service the all-important
airport route in 93 % of the world’s largest cities. A cruise speed of 80–100 km/h
enables the Volocopter to offer significant time savings compared to ground
transport, without the practical drawbacks of higher-speed aircraft. With its
two-seat configuration, the Volocopter will be able to service the vast majority
of urban air taxi missions. The Volocopter design allows for comfortable, safe
embarking and disembarking along with a comfortable environment for passen-
gers. Its design simplicity and efficient use of batteries enable the Volocopter to
be operated at a low operating cost. This allows the air taxi service to be de-
ployed at scale within competitive price levels. The Volocopter is thus destined
to pioneer the emerging Urban Air Mobility revolution, offering an additional
mode of transport to people in cities around the world.
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 26

CONTRIBUTORS

AUTHOR
Jan-Hendrik Boelens Volocopter I Chief Technology Officer

CONTRIBUTORS AND REVIEWERS

Dr.-Ing. Ulrich Schäferlein Volocopter I Senior Engineer Aerodynamics
Sebastian Mores Volocopter I Chief Engineer Volo Next Generation
Oliver Reinhardt Volocopter I Head of Airworthiness
Dr. Kyriakos Georgiadis Volocopter I Head of Battery Development
Michael Harms Volocopter I Head of Mechanical Engineering & Integration
Artus Rupalla Volocopter I Executive Assistant CTO
Uma Subramanian Member of Volocopter External Advisory Council

REFERENCES
McKinsey Center for Future Mobility Taxiing for take-off: The flying cab in your
future, January 2019
Roland Berger GmbH Urban air mobility: The rise of a new
mode of transportation, November 2018
Porsche Consulting The Future of Vertical Mobility, March 2018
NASA Langley Research Center Silicon Valley as an Early Adopter for
On-Demand Civil VTOL Operations, June 2016
Uber Elevate Fast-Forwarding to a Future of On-Demand
Urban Air Transportation, October 2016
NASA Ames Research Center Observation from Exploration of VTOL Urban
Air Mobility Designs, October 2018
 Pioneering the Urban Air Taxi Revolution 27

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jan-Hendrik is Chief Technology Officer and a Managing Director at Volocopter GmbH,
a start-up that is pioneering urban air mobility solutions. Jan-Hendrik leads the
engineering, production and airworthiness organization at Volocopter. He has
managed the rapid growth of the company from around 10 employees to well
over 100 within one year.

Prior to joining Volocopter, Jan-Hendrik held several management positions with

Airbus Helicopters (previously Eurocopter). He headed the international engi-
neering department tasked with electrical systems engineering and electric drive
systems, leading electrical systems development on the H160, H175 and City
Airbus projects.

In addition, Jan-Hendrik was a chief engineer for the H135 helicopter, led an
avionics systems engineering team, and was an active member of the RTCA/
EUROCAE working group that developed the DO-178C industry standard for
software in aviation.

ABOUT VOLOCOPTER GMBH

Volocopter is a global leader in the development of electrical vertical take-off
and landing aircrafts (eVTOL) deployed as air taxis to safely transport passen-
gers to their destinations. The aircraft’s technical platform is extremely versatile
and permits piloted, or fully autonomous flight. Its unique design offers unprec-
edented degrees of safety based on the high level of redundancy in all critical
components. In 2011, the company earned its position in aviation history with a
manned flight in the world’s first fully-electric multicopter. Since then, the young
enterprise has continued to mark new milestones. In 2016, Volocopter obtained
provisional licensing for a two-seat Volocopter from Germany’s aviation author-
ities. And in 2017, the aviation start-up showcased the first autonomous flight
of an urban air taxi in cooperation with RTA Dubai. In the meantime, company
founders Stephan Wolf and Alexander Zosel have formed an effective team of
experienced managers including CEO Florian Reuter, CTO Jan-Hendrik Boelens,
and CFO Rene Griemens. This has paved the way for further expansion of the
company. Volocopter investors include Daimler and Intel.

www.volocopter.com
IMPRINT

Volocopter GmbH
Zeiloch 20
76646 Bruchsal / Germany

Tel: +49 7251 93694-0

Fax: +49 7251 93694-499
E-Mail: [email protected]
www.volocopter.com

CEO/Geschäftsführer:
Florian Reuter
Jan-Hendrik Boelens
Rene Griemens

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© Volocopter GmbH, June 2019