BUSINESS AVIATION
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Business Aviation P24PROGRAMME DAN THISDELL LONDON
Volocopter rises with fresh investment
Air taxi start-up wins new funds as it aims for certification of VoloCity electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle
V
olocopter, the German urban
air mobility developer which
last year flew demonstration
flights in Helsinki, Stuttgart and
Singapore and secured a key
European regulatory approval, has
completed an €87 million ($94
million) funding round, taking
total investment to €122 million.
The latest cash infusion
bolsters the company’s ambition
of achieving certification for its
VoloCity autonomous, electric
vertical take-off and landing
(eVTOL) passenger aircraft to
run commercial routes within
the next two to four years. The
funding will also enable
Volocopter to develop a
second-generation VoloDrone for
cargo operations.
New investors include Ger-
man logistics group DB Schenk-
er, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance
Company is planning to launch passenger services within four yearsVolocopterT
he Federal Aviation Adminis-
tration (FAA) has agreed to pay
the US government $90,000 to set-
tle allegations it retaliated against a
staffer who raised concerns about
unqualified safety inspectors.
Those inspectors’ lack of train-
ing and certification called “into
question the operational review of
aircraft including the Boeing 737
Max and Gulfstream GVII”, says
the US Office of Special Counsel,
an agency with investigation and
prosecution authority.
The GVII includes the US air-
framer’s superwide, long-range
G500 and G600 business jets.
“The whistleblower disclosed
that flight inspectors were certify-
ing pilots and conducting safety
check rides even though they
lacked the formal training and
certifications required to perform
that oversight,” says the Special
Counsel, which disclosed the
FAA’s settlement on 24 February.
Allegedly unqualified inspectors checked safety of Gulfstream jetsGulfstreamINVESTIGATION JON HEMMERDINGER BOSTON
FAA pays to settle whistleblower ‘retaliation’ case
and TransLink Capital, part-
owned by Japan Airlines.
Chief executive Florian Reuter
says the new shareholder
structure brings “the expertise
and necessary long-term funds
on board to make this innovative
form of mobility a reality”.
In December, the European
Union Aviation Safety Agency
(EASA) awarded the company
Design Organisation Approval
(DOA), giving it a streamlined
pathway to commercial certifica-
tion of its passenger carrying
multi-copter.
Volocopter claims to be
unique among eVTOL develop-
ers in holding this EASA status.
Other DOA holders include Air-
bus, BAE Systems, Leonardo
and Lufthansa Technik.
With the new funding round,
Volocopter has also expanded itsadvisory board. New members
include DB Schenker chief
executive Jochen Thewes, for-
mer Daimler boss Dieter Zetsche
and Yifan Li, the vice-president
of Chinese automotive giant
Geely Holding.
Thewes says: “We are con-
vinced that the Volocopter tech-
nology has the potential to bringtransport logistics to the next di-
mension for our customers. DB
Schenker has already tested au-
tonomous and electrical vehicles
in actual operations.
“By integrating the VoloDrone
into our supply chain of the fu-
ture we will be able to serve our
clients’ demand for fast, remote,
emission-neutral deliveries.” ■It adds that the FAA’s Office of
Audit and Evaluation has since
substantiated the whistleblower’s
allegations, concluding that
“after disclosing the problem, the
whistleblower faced retaliation”.
“After he made the disclosures,
his managers allegedly removed
his duties and denied training re-
quests, flight certifications, and
training opportunities,” the Spe-
cial Counsel says. “The whistle-blower took a new position in an-
other city to escape what he
believed was harassment.”
Boeing did not immediately re-
spond to a request for comment.
Gulfstream declines to specifi-
cally comment about the whistle-
blower’s allegations or the FAA’s
settlement, but notes that its G500
and G600 jets have flown more
than 9,000h and that the company
has “a more than 60-year historyof successfully developing pilot
training materials”.
The FAA certificated the G500
in 2018 and the G600 in 2019.
The regulator says it “takes all
[whistleblowers] seriously and
does not tolerate retaliation
against those who raise concerns”.
In September 2019, following
the FAA’s investigation into the al-
legations, the Special Counsel told
the US Congress and President
Donald Trump that “the FAA’s
failure to ensure safety inspector
competency for these aircraft puts
the flying public at risk”.
The FAA investigation found
that 16 of 22 safety inspectors, in-
cluding those on its Seattle Air-
craft Evaluation Group, had not
completed formal training. Elev-
en of the 16 inspectors lacked
“flight instructor certificates,
which are a basic position re-
quirement”, the Special Counsel
said last September. ■