TCab Tech is steadily pushing forward its E20 eVTOL development. During the first quarter of the year it has completed a number of tilt-rotor transition flights with the E20 50% subscale demonstrator.

The E20 50% sub-scale demonstrator features six-metre wingspan, two lift rotors and four tilt-rotors. Like the E20, the demonstrator uses six rotors in VTOL and transits to four rotors in cruise. The two lift rotors are switched-off and locked during cruising flight.

The demonstrator serves as a flight-testing platform for the engineering team to collect valuable flight test data for early validation of the E20 configuration and design. Being the first passenger-carrying eVTOL company in China employed with vectored thrust configuration, the 50% subscale demonstrator is by far one of the largest eVTOL demonstrators currently flew in China.

The 50% subscale demonstrator is the second subscale demonstrator built by TCab Tech. Compared to the previous 25% subscale demonstrator, it has several improvements:

Aerodynamic: larger in size and exactly the same external layout as the full-scale E20, the flight test results collected could further validate the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations.

External Layout: included flaps and variable pitch rotors to improve control laws and aerodynamics validations.

Systems: Conversion corridor of the tilt-rotor could be fine-tuned, plus, every control unit has independent control channel to facilitate failure hazard analysis (FHA) and the examination of the fail-safe design.

Flight Control: Mounted with many data-feedback sensors to collect thorough flight data which could be used to further improve aircraft control algorithms.

While serving as a flight-testing platform, the E20 eVTOL 50% subscale demonstrator is also used to develop in-house structural and durability test facilities, electric motor test-rigs, SIL and HIL flight simulation labs. The know-how gains from the flight testing and the facilities built will pave a smoother path for us to prepare ourselves toward getting airworthiness certification from the Chinese airworthiness authority.