There are more solutions than obstacles. Nicolas Zart
Advanced air mobility (AAM) is continuing to leave the concept phase preparing for daily life. Three recent stories show how new aircraft, new designs, and new public programs are lining up to solve real problems, especially in medical transport and regional connectivity.
Advanced Air Mobility Medical Transport: Volocopter, Horizon, Ohio Updates
Volocopter is back and bets on its light sport eVTOL. Long known for its urban air taxi ambitions, the company is pivoting into a different opportunity: the light sport aircraft market. A recent report describes how Volocopter is adapting its earlier 2X multicopter into a new light sport eVTOL called the VoloXPro, targeted at private owners rather than city air taxi networks.
Under Europe’s Light Sport Aircraft rules, Volocopter expects a faster and simpler path to certification than for its VoloCity air taxi, which must meet full commercial standards. The company plans to continue and expand its test work in Bruchsal, Germany, using a dedicated sandbox to accumulate at least 150 flight hours, a key requirement under the emerging framework.
If Volocopter succeeds, private pilots could be flying a light sport eVTOL before large scale urban air taxi services launch. This shifts some early use cases away from dense city centers and toward airfields, flying clubs, and training organizations that already know how to operate small aircraft. It also gives regulators a simpler model to validate, while still building experience with electric vertical flight.
For readers who want to dig deeper into how air taxi certification compares with other AAM paths, see our background explainer on regulatory roadmaps at Electric Air Mobility:
https://www.electricairmobility.news/2024/08/20/advanced-air-mobility-evolution/
Horizon refines the Cavorite X7 hybrid eVTOL
While Volocopter focuses on smaller, shorter range aircraft, Horizon Aircraft continues to push a long range hybrid eVTOL design. Its Cavorite X7 uses a split wing with buried lift fans for vertical takeoff and landing, then closes panels over those fans to fly like a conventional airplane in cruise.
The latest design update reduces the total number of electric fans from 14 to 12 and replaces four small canard fans with two larger units that match the wing fans. This improves manufacturing, simplifies maintenance, and cuts drag without changing Horizon’s target performance. The company still aims for about 450 kilometers per hour cruise speed, roughly 280 miles per hour, and around 800 kilometers of range, or close to 500 miles, with one pilot and up to six passengers.
Horizon has also refined the canards and tail surfaces to improve stability and lower drag in cruise, and it lengthened the cabin slightly for more legroom and better views. These tweaks show a shift from pure concept to real world penetrability, where comfort, maintainability, and energy efficiency matter as much as raw innovation.
Hybrid concepts like the Cavorite X7 are part of a wider trend in AAM, where battery limitations push designers toward range extending solutions such as turbogenerators and optimized aerodynamics. Aviation Week and others have noted that hybrids can offer longer range and higher payload while still cutting emissions and operating costs compared with traditional aircraft.
To see how these hybrid and electric aircraft fit into the broader AAM picture, you can review Electric Air Mobility’s overview of AAM evolution:
https://www.electricairmobility.news/2024/05/20/understanding-advanced-air-mobility-aam/
Ohio’s eIPP plan: advanced air mobility for healthcare
The third story shifts from aircraft to systems. Ohio has submitted a proposal to the FAA’s Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing Integration Pilot Program, or eIPP, that uses advanced air mobility to solve a national healthcare challenge across four states. The plan would deploy operational aircraft within three months of approval, focusing on time critical medical transport.
Led by the Ohio Department of Transportation with JobsOhio, BETA Technologies, Joby Aviation, NEOEx, and the National Advanced Air Mobility Center of Excellence, the proposal builds on more than 1.2 billion dollars of existing AAM infrastructure and investments. BETA’s electric aircraft would move routine and urgent medical cargo for DHL Supply Chain between Indianapolis, Columbus, and Akron, while NEOEx’s hydrogen hybrid uncrewed systems would cover shorter legs between facilities in Ohio and Michigan.
Joby’s piloted aircraft and its Superpilot autonomous flight technology would support longer distance medical missions, helping address the region’s most time sensitive transport needs. The program would rely on existing assets such as the NAAMCE test center in Springfield, Ohio, the SkyVision beyond visual line of sight test site, and the Air Force Research Lab at Wright Patterson, making Ohio a dense cluster for AAM testing, operations, and workforce development.
If selected, the eIPP project would run flight demonstrations within months and then continue routine operations for three years. It aims to prove that AAM can deliver faster, more reliable, and more economical medical logistics than many current ground and charter options, while building scalable standards for national rollout. This kind of use case aligns with research that sees cargo and medical transport as early, high value applications for urban and advanced air mobility.
Bringing the stories together
These developments highlight how AAM is maturing along several paths at once. Volocopter pivoting to light sport category. Horizon refines a long range hybrid design that could serve regional passenger, emergency, and defense missions. And Ohio is pulling aircraft and infrastructure together into a real world medical logistics network that spans multiple states.
Together, they show that AAM is not a single type of air taxi, but a mix of electric and hybrid aircraft, tailored missions, and regional ecosystems. For more news and context on how these pieces fit into a multi mobility future, visit Electric Air Mobility’s news hub:
https://www.electricairmobility.news/news/
If you want more on the human side of these changes, including interviews with engineers, pilots, and community leaders, you can also follow our show and channels:
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Further Reading
Understanding advanced air mobility
Urban air mobility review and research meta analysis
Overview of hybrid and electric aircraft roles in contested logistics