11,000 on the waitlist. The crown Prince of Dubai vowing he will be the first in his emirate. Upcoming locations across the globe. LIFT Aircraft is spreading its wings and bringing a new era to travel with its human-capable drone aircraft.
Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes recently got to fly LIFT’s single-seat semi-autonomous personal aircraft, HEXA, and he’ll soon be joined by 4,000 people with prepaid reservations as LIFT takes its electrical vertical takeoff and landing (eVTL) vehicles on tour.
LIFT Aircraft is an Austin-based company looking to make something previously reserved for the privileged mega-wealthy – private flight – accessible to everyone. Its goal is to make the safest ultralight aircraft, and now it is making numerous partnerships as it looks to take its exciting product out into the public.
Joining State-of-the-Art Safety And Sky-High Applications
Safety is a fundamental priority for LIFT, whose board includes former Chief of Aviation Safety at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Dr. Charles Justiz. The aircraft have multiple, state-of-the-art safety features including a triply redundant autopilot computer, 18 independent rotors (it can fly with the loss of up to 6), as well as a whole-aircraft ballistic parachute effective at altitudes as low as 40 feet. 7 floats also give HEXA amphibious landing capability and can deploy an emergency landing cushion.
These ultralight aircraft can be flown without an expensive pilot license or certification under Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Part 103. LIFT provides ground school and virtual reality (VR) flight simulator training that easily teaches how to fly these intuitive drones. This allows the company to offer recreational flights out of its vertiport locations.
LIFT’s exciting plans for HEXA – with its numerous applications – are galvanizing others. LIFT has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with an international vertiport operator, with the option of creating 10 vertiports and supplying 100 HEXA globally. It is creating what it believes will be the largest global vertiport network.
Alongside this private sector MOU, the company can tout a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract with the United States Air Force, with the potential for a military acquisition program for LIFT. It has also been selected for an Air Force Strategic Financing (STRATFI) contract that, if awarded, matches dollar-for-dollar funding of up to $30 million for Research and Development (R&D) purposes.
HEXA’s cabin and floats can also be swapped with a payload, meaning it has first response applications with the military, search and rescue, disaster response and more. This broad scale of uses – from public to private sector, and from recreation to first response – means LIFT Aircraft is optimistic that with HEXA, the sky’s the limit.
After a highly successful Reg CF fundraise, LIFT has now launched a Reg A+ stock offering.
Other companies developing eVLT or similar products have gone public with strong market caps of up to $2.5 billion. These include Joby Aviation (NYSE: JOBY), EHang Holdings (NASDAQ: EH), and Archer Aviation Inc. (NYSE: ACHR).
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/aircraft-company-giving-wings-134500216.html