While athletes prepare for the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, one company hopes its helicopter taxis will also get the gold.
“If you can fly in Paris, you can fly in any city in the world,” Volocopter CEO Dirk Hoke tells AFP.
The famed City of Lights has some of the most restricted airspace rules in the world — meaning a company that wants to fly a commercial aircraft there needs to demonstrate the vehicle has the same level of safety as an airplane, which is 100 times more than that of a helicopter, the article points out.
To that end, Hoke’s company hopes its quiet, electric VoloCity helicopter — which with its 18 rotors looks something like a giant toy drone with a two-seater cockpit — can use the Games as a spotlight to show the safety and feasibility of air taxis.
The company is seeking certification for its designs from the U.S. FAA and the safety agency’s European equivalent, EASA. Oh, and as much as $33 million in capital from investors for its testing phase.
Volocopter hopes to obtain certification for passenger-free test flights timed for the Olympics, ahead of two years of test flights in the Paris region. If all goes to plan, a four-seat version could be in the air by “late 2026, early 2027,” according to the article.
Stateside, the FAA in June granted California-based transportation company Joby Aviation a Special Airworthiness Certificate, which allows the company to operate in U.S. airspace with certain restrictions.
It, too, wants to bring air taxis from The Jetsons to real life.