FutureFlight
Aurora Insists It Is Still an Advanced Air Mobility Contender with eVTOL Technology in the Works
Funding cuts at parent company Boeing have slowed the pace of some work, but the technology continues to mature behind closed doors.
Aurora Passenger Air Vehicle
Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences displayed its Passenger Air Vehicle technology demonstrator at the 2019 Dubai Air Show. (Photo: AIN)

Aurora Flight Sciences is quietly developing its advanced air mobility technology, despite longer-term plans for this sector being somewhat in limbo due to budget cuts at Boeing, its parent company. June 2 will mark the second anniversary of an accident in which its Passenger Air Vehicle (PAV) eVTOL technology demonstrator was badly damaged in a crash during flight testing. Plans to resume this work have since been suspended indefinitely.

According to president and CEO Per Beith, the company’s Virginia-based engineering team is still working to apply the all-electric PAV’s technology to several other platforms that could use a mix of propulsion systems and varying degrees of autonomous flight capability. “We built two [PAV] vehicles and we were also working on a hybrid-electric version,” he told FutureFlight.