Whisper Aero says it has found a way to make its electric ducted fans lift an aircraft nearly vertically from a helipad-sized footprint while using about half the thrust a conventional eVTOL needs to hover, the Tennessee start-up announced today. Rather than take off straight up, a JetFoil aircraft rolls about 50 feet—far less than a conventional short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft needs—and lifts off within the same area a helicopter or eVTOL would use.
The capability comes from JetFoil, the company’s method of embedding a row of its ducted fans into the leading edge of a wing. Whisper revealed its JetFoil technology in 2023 as part of a nine-passenger regional aircraft concept called the Whisper Jet, and the following year, the company publicized a 100-seat electric airliner concept it dubbed the Whisper Jetliner, which packed 22 ducted fans into an upper-surface-blown wing. Both were fixed-wing designs for conventional or short takeoffs, not vertical flight.
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