The nascent world of eVTOL racing
Boats, bicycles, automobiles, aircraft. Whenever new vehicles arrive on the stage of human history, it doesn’t take long for us to start racing. So it’s not surprising that the first competitive eVTOL racing series is just around the corner.
Leading the charge is Australian entrepreneur Matthew Pearson, the founder of two ventures in this space. Alauda Aeronautics is manufacturing an eVTOL racer, having performed only pilotless flights to date, but working toward crewed operation of the Alauda Mk4.
“The Hydrogen-Electric Future of Racing”1
The second venture is a dedicated eVTOL racing series called Airspeeder2. All competitions so far have been remotely piloted - resembling scaled-up drone racing - but the vision is to have pilots climb inside their single-seater racers to compete in the air.
From the insurance perspective, eVTOL racing will raise the eyebrows of aviation underwriters, particularly where racing involves crowds and on-board pilots. Despite the challenges, racing could have wider benefits to the Advanced Air Mobility industry as competitive race teams push boundaries in an effort to have the safest, most reliable, winning aircraft. Technological and safety innovations from the eVTOL racing segment could be applied more widely to benefit non-racing use cases.
Picture credit: Alauda Aeronautics
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