Falck Aims to Reconfigure Kitty Hawk's Heaviside eVTOL for Emergency Medical Support
Other eVTOL aircraft developers are targeting emergency medical support services, including Jump Aero, Jaunt Air Mobility, Urban Aeronautics, EHang, and Volocopter.
Heaviside now appears to be the main focus of Kitty Hawk's efforts to develop an eVTOL personal air vehicle, after it stopped work on another single-seat model called the Flyer. The California-based company has consistently refused to provide any information about the development timeline for the all-electric aircraft. In June 2020, it laid off 70 staff as part of the reorganization to focus entirely on the Heaviside project.
Kitty Hawk claims that Heaviside will be "100 times quieter" than existing helicopters. It said that in test flights it has demonstrated sound levels of 35 dBA at 1,500 feet and claimed that this will mean almost no noise will be heard from the aircraft within 30 seconds of takeoff. The company says that flight testing of what appears to be a technology demonstrator has achieved a range of 100 miles and speeds of up to 180 mph (while maintaining one-quarter of the charge in its batteries for safety reserves). One of its development aircraft crashed on October 17, 2019, in an accident that investigators from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board concluded was caused by software timing errors compromising flight controls.
Kitty Hawk is also a joint venture partner with Boeing in Wisk, which is developing the Cora eVTOL aircraft for planned air taxi operations.
On March 2, 2021, the company announced it was working with Denmark-based healthcare group Falck to begin developing a medical support version of the Heaviside eVTOL aircraft. Falck hopes to improve emergency response time while reducing the cost of medical flights. Kitty Hawk, to date, has built 13 prototype aircraft with more than 700 test flights under its belt. Still, the company remains secretive about its development timeline for the long-running Heaviside program.
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Since Kitty Hawk spun off its Cora eVTOL aircraft into the new Wisk joint venture with Boeing, it has been unclear what will become of its Heaviside personal air vehicle. The company, which is backed by Google co-founder Larry Page, has already stopped work on another model called the Flyer and laid off around 70 staff in June 2020.
Boeing's September 2020 announcement that it is closing its Boeing NeXt advanced technology division raised further doubts about Wisk's future, although the company insists the Cora program will continue. Kitty Hawk has made no public statements about its long term plans beyond releasing some video of Heaviside test flights conducted in 2019.
The Heaviside tiltrotor aircraft has eight electric motors, powering eight propellers. Six of the tilting propellers are located on the rear edge of the main wing, with two more on a forward canard.
During flight testing, it has demonstrated range of 100 miles and speeds of up to 180 mph, with one quarter of available electric charge remaining in its batteries for safety reserves.
The improbably-branded aircraft is reportedly named after 19th century British electrical engineer Oliver Heaviside, who pioneered circuit analysis.