FutureFlight
Blended Wing Design Promises To Break eVTOL Payload/Range Mold
Kelekona says it can adapt the blended wing, or lifting body, airframe concept to carry up to 40 passengers on flights between cities that are 350 miles apart.
Kelekona
Kelekona says its lifting body, all-electric eVTOL aircraft will be able to carry 40 passengers or 10,000 pounds of freight on flights of up to 350 miles. (Image: Kelekona)

Touting an eye-catching design that it says will transform payload/range margins for eVTOL aircraft, New York City-based start-up Kelekona says it will be ready to begin test operations with a scaled model by late 2021 or early 2022. The company is projecting a target payload of around 10,000 pounds for initial freight operations, or 40 passengers for subsequent commercial flights of up to around 350 miles.

Initial designs revealed at Kelekona’s website are built around the lifting-body or blended-wing concept pioneered almost a hundred years ago by Vincent Burnelli and other early aerospace pioneers, including Nicolas Woyevodsky. The concept has resurfaced more recently in work done by NASA and Boeing for the X-48 unmanned aerial vehicle and is now being explored by Airbus as the basis for one of its ZeroE hydrogen airliner proposals.