Thomas Senkel unveils tandem-wing air taxi prototype

The eMagic, premiered at EUROPEAN ROTORS, has an empty weight of just 250 kg (562 lb), a max takeoff weight of 420 kg (882 lb), and cruise for a full hour at 144 km/h (90 mph) on a charge of its dual battery packs. Five times the range, Senkel claims, than a pure multicopter design can manage on the same energy. 

"The next steps," according to Senkel, "will be to develop a serial production aircraft with all the lessons learned from this prototype. It will be a three-seater, for a pilot and two passengers. That's probably the right size for use as an air taxi. We've financed the prototype out of our own pockets. But for the next steps, we will definitely need an investment round.

“There are a lot of eVTOL projects out there. But we didn't want to show just computer animations. We wanted to have a functional prototype when we went public." 

Meanwhile, Dufour Aerospace and Swiss air rescue Rega have signed a letter of intent to cooperate on development of an air ambulance version of Dufour’s tilt-wing Aero3 eVTOL aircraft.