Moya Aero publishes footage of first subscale transition flight

Brazilian startup Moya Aero has released footage of the first ever transition flight with its sub-scale tiltbody uncrewed eVTOL aircraft prototype. 

The flight, using a 15% scale version, was conducted on August 22nd, near the company’s facilities in San Jose de Campos, southeastern Brazil. Lasting about two minutes, the aircraft reached a top speed of 83km/h (23m/s) and, at times, flew to the limits of human eyesight leaving the visual observer in control relying on the live telemetry footage to navigate. 

Revolution.Aero caught up with Moya’s CEO and founder Alexandre Zaramela ahead of the footage release this week. 

“To undergo transition flight our aircraft rotates its fuselage 90-degrees, so the vertical axis becomes the longitudinal and vice versa. This changes how we control the aircraft. It is something we have trialled in simulations, but not in real life.”

The test flight was also the first time Moya had flown a prototype horizontally using its wings, having only hovered previously. 

“Also having the first flight in aircraft mode meant on two occasions during the test our heart rates were nearing 200 beats per minute. But following our first successful flight we know both phases work.

“We took off from a runway and set the flight up so we would have to manoeuvre the aircraft, turn back to the landing site and then transition back to hover before landing. As the telemetry footage will show, we can see all the phases coming together for the first time,” said Zaramela.

With all parameters for the vertical phase of flight now integrated into the aircraft, the plan now is to refine the transition phases in forward and backward and define the parameters for horizontal flight (aka aircraft mode). Top of the agenda is to make the transition phase “smoother”, for the purposes of safety the recent flight test saw Moya’s flight test team engage more throttle and energy than would be deemed acceptable in the commercial version.

Flying a 15% scale version differs aerodynamically compared with Moya’s 75%-scale, 5.5m wingspan, 250kg prototype unveiled in October 2023. Zaramela said the idea is to streamline the transition on a smaller scale before beginning flight tests in the 75%-scale prototype later this year.

“Depending on the scale, if it is smaller you are not going to be reproducing what you will experience in real life. However, physically performing the transition and testing the autopilot system is the main goal of these sub-scale flight tests. 

“Later this year we plan to do the transition in the bigger prototype, following some adjustments that have come to light following the tests conducted last month.”

This year will also Moya Aero begin to produce parts for its full-scale commercial aircraft, ahead of flight testing next year and planned type certification with Brazil’s regulator in 2026, according to Zaramela. The company will also publicly announce its partners and component suppliers towards the end of 2024, he added. 

Update on hybrid variant 

At the end of July, Moya revealed it will develop and manufacture a hybrid variant of its tiltbody uncrewed eVTOL. The hybridisation expands operational range to 300km while maintaining a 200kg payload capacity, said Zaramela. 

“We needed to try and find a solution, because for most customers a 100km all-electric range is not enough for their operation. We are reaching the upper limit of where we can go with a lithium battery chemistry. There is also the potential for hydrogen, but that is not an option to buy off the shelf today. That is how we came to the decision to introduce a hybrid option with a small combustion engine. I think that is going to the solution for electric aviation for quite some time.”

When Moya’s engineering team ran the numbers, the energy required for vertical flight is four times greater than horizontal flying — thanks to gravity. 

“That means it doesn’t make sense to integrate a combustion engine to assist in vertical flight. So the idea here was to change the source of energy during the horizontal flight. We will still have all the rotors running using electric energy, but then we have combustion engine linked to a generator that will supply energy for a small buffer that maintains power in the batteries.” 

Zaramela said the system was developed so the aircraft can conduct up to three takeoff and landings using only battery energy before requiring the hybrid system.

Getting creative in the investment winter 

Versus aerospace innovation in the US or Europe, less is more in Brazil, according to Zaramela. During his time in the industry, which has included spells at Embraer, Airbus and ACS Aviation, the engineer by trade has seen his fair share of gold rushes and investment winters. 

The wave of investment in eVTOL developers largely culminating in the SPAC boom of 2021, has attracted capital orders of magnitude bigger than all of the other future flight sectors combined. According to research from Alton Aviation Consultancy, of the approximately $12bn injected into AAM, 85% of it has found its way to the OEMs. 

“The only time I can compare this with is the very light jet boom in the early ‘00s,” said Zaramela. “But at that time we used to talk about millions, now it is billions of dollars. This doesn’t make sense to me as a business plan. I think the numbers of aircraft to be produced were overestimated and the showcase of a brilliant, new future market attracted investors. But as timelines have been extended and productions number dialled back, investors are now holding their money and waiting to see what happens.”

Zaramela said Moya owes thanks for its continued development, in large part, to grants from the Brazilian government. Last year, the firm received a $2m grant from the Ministry of Science of Technology’s development fund FINEP. 

“We are also bootstrapping to endure this winter too. We have part of the company offering engineering service to ensure we have multiple income streams from which we can reinvest in the product. Like this, we have about 18 months of self-sufficiency. But I think in the next two years will we see investment begin again for those companies who were able to continue developing their product and moving forward. 

“For us this winter has been okay. It has just prompted us to become more creative with what we have, and it hasn’t stifled our progression,” concludes Zaramela.