Aircraft Flew For About A Minute Inside A Drone Cage

A full-size test article of a passenger drone under development by NEC Corp made a one-minute test flight inside a drone cage Monday in a suburb of Tokyo.

Engadget reports that, according to Bloomberg, the eVTOL aircraft lifted about 10 feet off the ground in the first demonstration of such a vehicle by a major Japanese corporation. Kouji Okada, who is among the project leads at NEC, told Bloomberg that the company is positioning itself to be an "enabler for air mobility, providing location data and building communications infrastructure for flying cars."

NEC partner Cartivator plans to begin mass-producing the aircraft in 2026, according to the report. Japan's infrastructure plan calls for deliveries of such vehicles to begin around 2023, and the Japanese government hopes to have people flying in the aircraft by the mid 2030s. Autonomous aircraft companies are getting a lot of interest from venture capitalists in Japan through the country's Drone Fund.

Engadget reports that the NEC passenger drone weighs about 330 pounds empty. No useful load was reported, but it will take a lot of power to safely fly for any length of time.

The Japanese government is strongly supporting the eVTOL effort. Cartivator already has permits for outdoor flights, according to the report.

(Image from YouTube video posted by Yuri Kageyama)

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