A half-scale model of Horizon’s fan-in-wing eVTOL has completed tethered hover testing.
Cert Center Canada (3C) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Canadian startup Horizon Aircraft to collaborate on development and certification of the Cavorite X5 fan-in-wing hybrid-electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft.
The agreement will give Horizon “access to services and expertise that includes gap analysis, certification planning, certifiable design consulting, training, flight test planning and execution, and eventual airworthiness approval,” the companies say.
Based in Montreal. 3C is a Transport Canada-approved independent flight test center and certification Design Approval Organization. In June 2022, 3C and the International Test Pilot School agreed to collaborate on flight test and training programs.
In January, Horizon completed initial tethered hover tests of a half-scale demonstrator of its planned Cavorite X5. The design has 12 electric lift fans embedded in the wing and four in the canard foreplane.
For vertical flight, the foreplane and wing open up—leading- and trailing-edge sections moving forward and rearward, respectively—to expose the lift fans. For forward flight, the foreplane and wing close up and the aircraft transitions to wingborne cruise with a pusher propeller providing propulsion.
Horizon plans to move to untethered testing, for which the company has applied for a special operations flight certificate from Transport Canada. This testing will involve a systematic buildup to full wing-borne flight with all wing and foreplane covers closed.
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