China’s TCab E20 eVTOL prototype is making regular transition flights

We have seen nothing yet from the aviation industry…

Shanghai’s TCab Tech has become one of China’s leading eVTOL contenders, claiming it’s now made many test flights validating its 50-percent scale prototype E20 air taxi design in vertical lift and hover mode, as well as transitions to winged cruise flight.

The E20 is an interesting take on a five-seat electric VTOL aircraft, a kind of halfway measure between tilt-prop vectored thrust designs like the Joby S4 and lift and cruise designs like Autoflight’s Prosperity. A large pair of gull wings rise off the top of the cabin, and halfway along them are a pair of four-blade lift props, capable of splitting and aligning themselves longitudinally for minimal drag in forward flight.

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Further out on the main wings sit a pair of large five-blade tilting props, and the remainder of the wing tips are fixed to the propulsion nacelles such that they tilt along with them. Back toward the tail is a second, shorter, forward-angled wing, which terminates in another set of tilting nacelles with large five-bladed props on them.

Read more: New Atlas