Eve eVTOL Completes Wind Tunnel Testing

Eve Air Mobility, the Brazilian eVTOL subsidiary of Embraer, said its electric aircraft successfully completed wind tunnel testing at a facility near Lucerne, Switzerland. 

The testing on a scale model of the eVTOL allows Eve to assess and validate certain components of the aircraft, including the fuselage, rotors, wing, and tail. The wind tunnel provides an indication of how the aircraft would perform when taking flight. 

Eve will accumulate experimental data to validate production solutions, development tools, and aircraft models, as well as to enhance the eVTOL’s performance and comfortability when transporting passengers. 

Luiz Valentini, chief technology officer at Eve, said the wind tunnel testing is an important step in the company’s bid to produce a safe and reliable eVTOL. 

“The completion of wind tunnel testing is an important engineering milestone as we continue the development of our eVTOL,” Valentini said. “The information we obtained during this phase of development has helped us further refine the technical solutions of our eVTOL before committing to production tooling and conforming prototypes. Our goal is to design, produce and certify an aerodynamic and efficient eVTOL that will be used for a variety of urban air mobility missions.”

The completion of the wind tunnel tests comes after Eve announced plans to persist with the construction of its first full-scale eVTOL prototype in the second half of 2023 despite posting a net loss of USD$25.8 million in the first quarter of the year. 

Eve’s eVTOL has a range of 60 miles (100 km) and can hold four to six passengers depending on the configuration. The Sao Paulo-based firm wants to have its electric aircraft certificated by the National Civil Aviation Agency of Brazil (ANAC) and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) by 2026.

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