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Not that long ago, Germany was the center of gravity for Europe’s burgeoning electric vertical take-off and landing industry, home to ambitious aircraft development programs at Lilium, Volocopter and Airbus. By 2025, those dreams had collapsed.
Lilium and Volocopter went bankrupt and had their intellectual property sold to foreign entities, while Airbus put its CityAirbus eVTOL on ice, no longer feeling pressure to compete with startups selling visions of air taxis. Although Volocopter continues to operate in Germany under its new owner Diamond Aircraft — a subsidiary of China’s Wanfeng — to many people, the country’s hopes for a homegrown eVTOL seemed dashed.
Related: Archer comes out on top in bidding for Lilium’s patent portfolio
If Germany’s eVTOL industry is down, it is not yet out for the count. This week, Munich-based ERC System revealed that it is flying a full-scale, lift-plus-cruise eVTOL prototype called Romeo, which at just over 6,000 lbs (2,735 kg) is one of the largest and heaviest eVTOLs flown in Europe to date. The company said Romeo will lay the groundwork for an uncrewed cargo aircraft primarily targeted at military applications and, ultimately, a piloted aircraft optimized for air medical transport, which will be hybrid rather than fully-electric.
ERC has drawn former employees of Lilium, Volocopter and Airbus into its small but highly motivated team of around 60 people, directing the skills and experience they built designing air taxis towards “very concrete, critical use cases,” according to chief commercial officer Maximilian Oligschläger. In an interview with The Air Current, Oligschläger and CEO David Löbl described how ERC is carrying the torch of Germany’s eVTOL industry, ensuring that at least some of its technology and know-how remain in Europe.
“We do see that there is incredible talent in Europe — these companies have done a tremendous job for the industry,” Oligschläger said. “They hired really good people. They built great cultures, and they obviously educated a lot of engineers that worked on this for a long time and that are now, I feel, even more motivated to try it one more time.”
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