German eVTOL developer Volocopter says it's determined to demonstrate the value of urban air mobility to the world at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris but it has some high regulatory hurdles to clear first. "The Olympics are our North Star," CEO Dirk Hoke told Reuters at the Paris Air Show this week. No eVTOLs have been certified yet, although some are well into the process, like Volocopter. The next phase for its multicopter is "intense weather testing" along with preparing the thousands of pages of documents that support the results of the flight test program. "It's not a walk in the park to be the first to certify," Hoke said.
The danger of a very public failure posed by actually undertaking a demonstration like this makes it a real gamble. Especially considering there was never much lost credibility and reputation to be “re-instilled” in the first place. Points for guts, that’s for sure.