FutureFlight
Manufacturing Specialists Want To Help Advanced Air Mobility Start-ups Meet Bold Production Promises
Aria Group, Pankl, and KTM E-technologies have formed the Co-Lektiv partnership to pool their resources and expertise to transform the scale of aircraft production.
Whisper Aero concept aircraft
Aria Group helped propulsion system innovators Whisper Aero to develop a recently unveiled concept aircraft for its program. (Image: Whisper Aero)

Taking the advanced air mobility (AAM) hype at face value, eVTOL aircraft developers continue to promise investors they will be producing vehicles at rates never previously achieved in the aviation industry. The forecast economies of scale for this new sector of air transportation are predicated on achieving new levels of manufacturing efficiency that have prompted some companies to look outside the mainstream aerospace sector for expertise and bandwidth.

This is what motivated a trio of specialist design, development, and production companies with feet in both the automotive and aviation camps to join forces back in November 2021. That was when Aria Group, Pankl, and KTM E-technologies formed Co-Lektiv as an alliance to offer the benefit of their experience to AAM start-ups.