Transcend Air partners with Lily Helipads to build VTOL landing areas

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Transcend Air, The VTOL company that is promising flights from Manhattan to Boston at a price of $283 one-way, has partnered with Lily Helipads to build zero-emission landing areas for its VTOL service.

The two companies plan to build several vertipads in areas such as Boston Harbor, the island of Manhattan, Montreal’s riverfront and San Francisco bay.

Transcend Air is developing a VTOL aircraft, the Vy 400 to fly on the service and is planning to launch its service in 2024 on the Boston-Manhattan route. The VTOL will feature six seats, a range of 300/450 miles and a cruise speed of 405mph. Vertipads will be solar powered, crash and hurricane proof, heated to prevent ice build-up and be ADA accessible.

“Transcend Air will address multiple problems involving congestion, traffic and pollution caused by our current transportation system,” said the company’s founder and CEO Gregory Bruell.

“By bringing vertipads close to travellers, we don’t increase airport traffic.  And by focusing on a safe and environmentally-friendly landing and take-off infrastructure, as only Lily can help us provide, we will be creating a more sustainable way to travel.”

Whilst many of the VTOL companies are focusing on intercity transport, Transcend Air is looking to provide air-travel services on well-travelled city-to-city routes. Peter Schmidt: COO and co-founder of Transcend Air said:

“Boston and Manhattan are an attractive pair because there is so much air travel between them already – over 11,000 people per day, on average.  Same is true for Montréal-Toronto and LA-San Francisco.”

Whilst the company is sticking to the United States for the time being, it is looking outside the country’s borders for future possibilities. Schmidt continued: “We are in discussions with urban planners, architects, and real-estate developers in India, China, and Europe who are interested in helping us develop our vertipad networks in their locales, but they are exploratory at this point.”

Lily Helipads first patented its sustainable helipad design in 2017. The patent is for a sustainable landing pad that features SIM (Snow Ice Melt) capabilities with LED lights and liquid run-off water separators. John Dotlich, CEO of Lily Helipads said:

“Lily Helipads is excited for the opportunity to incorporate many of the tried-and-true innovations found in our helipad landing surfaces into these new Transcend vertipad landing systems.”

VTOL Roadmap

The next step for Transcend Air is to complete a half-scale prototype and then close off the full-scale prototype RFI. It is also looking for new capital and is planning to raise a Series A round.

Transcend Air has an easier roadmap to certification than other VTOL companies as it does not require any new experimental certification.

Schmidt said: “Unlike the urban air mobility companies, that need an entire new air-traffic-control paradigm and IT system to implement it is not needed by Trancend – we could operate our aircraft today under existing rules, as they stand, no problem.”

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