ePlane unveils India’s first full scale eVTOL prototype

Chennai-headquartered The ePlane Company has completed assembly of its full-scale electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, the e200X, integrating the aircraft’s core subsystems into a single structure. The completed prototype, designated PT-01, moves the e200X from design and simulation into the physical testing phase that precedes flight. The aircraft is designed as one airframe serving three markets: a passenger air taxi, an urban cargo carrier, and an air ambulance.

Satya Chakravarthy, Founder of The ePlane Company said, “This announcement is about the reveal of our first full scale working prototype, which we have been putting through ground tests in the last couple of months as just an airframe but have come to the point of fitting the vertical and forward propulsion units as in the full aircraft for further ground testing with them followed by flight tests in the next couple of months—the first time full scale eVTOL is being tested on ground and in flight in India.” This is the first step towards the next two prototypes that would come out towards the end of this year / early part of next year to undergo flight tests towards certification, he added.

The company said that a completed full-scale airframe is a decisive stage in any aircraft programme, because it establishes what simulation cannot. It validates that the design can be manufactured at full size, that the tooling and supply chain to build it are in place and functioning, and that the subsystems integrate physically into a single structure. It is the stage that separates designing an aircraft from being able to test one.

The e200X will now enter ground testing, in which the structure and onboard systems are subjected to aerodynamic and mechanical loads on specialised equipment at ePlane’s facility, followed by flight testing and the pursuit of Type Certification. According to the company, developing a full-scale eVTOL is among the most demanding challenges in contemporary aerospace, and only a small number of programmes worldwide have carried a design through to a complete, full-scale aircraft. With the e200X, ePlane is among them.

The e200X has been designed and assembled at ePlane’s own facilities, with its major systems, the propellers, the airframe structure, the landing gear and the battery pack, developed in-house rather than imported as finished assemblies. In a category where many developers rely on a global supply chain, that vertical integration gives ePlane unusual control over performance, cost and iteration speed.

In May 2023, the company received the design organisation approval (DOA) from the DGCA—the first private company to receive it in India. “Next, we applied for the type certification of the propeller and the eVTOL aircraft itself, both of which were accepted—the only private company to have its TC applications accepted (only company, public or private to have the propeller TC application accepted),” Mr. Chakravarthy said. He added: “We expect the propeller TC to be obtained by the end of this year (the only company to get this in this part of the world apparently), and the aircraft TC by next year end or a couple of months later perhaps. So, we have been progressing all along.”

When asked about the challenges pertaining to vertiports and charging infrastructure in India, Mr. Chakravarthy said: “We have the distinction of being the most compact-footprint eVTOL in the world, so we can use existing helipads in and around a city as vertiports, to start with, before new vertiports are developed. The charging infrastructure required for us is the same as that used for long distance electric buses and trucks, so that exists too. The only remaining challenge is locating the existing chargers at the existing helipads.”