Sanskrit For Vehicle, Airbus’ ‘Vahana’, Aims To Revolutionise Urban Mobility

Airbus’ Vahana, deriving it’s name from Sanskrit, and through which the European major ambitiously amis to revolutionise urban commuting, completed its first full-scale test flight in Oregon, United States on 31 January, the Times Of India has reported.

Airbus has described the single seater, self-piloted, vertical take off and landing (VTOL) aircraft’s successful test flight as a "milestone in advancing urban air mobility".

The project is being developed by A³, Airbus’ arm in the Silicon Valley since the last 2 years, beginning in 2016.

“We aim to fly a full-size prototype before the end of 2017, and to have a productizable demonstrator by 2020," the Vahana website says.

"Vahana, the all electric, self-piloted, VTOL aircraft from A³ by Airbus... successful completion of its first full-scale flight test, reaching a height of 5 meters before descending safely. Its first flight, with a duration of 53 seconds, was fully self-piloted and the vehicle completed a second flight the following day," Airbus said post the successful test flight.

“Following the completion of this successful test, the Vahana team will continue development and perform further flight tests to transition and forward flight”, the blog post detailing the flight read.