Speaker 1: NASA wants to quietly bring back supersonic travel. Personal flying vehicles appear closer to reality than ever. And where is that Amazon drone delivery service we keep hearing about? This is the Flying Tech to watch in 2023. It's been two decades since the Concord was retired from service grounding, commercial supersonic air travel. But new research on supersonic [00:00:30] flight from both the private and public sectors could put passengers back in planes that fly faster than the speed of sound
Speaker 2: Leading
Speaker 1: The charge. Are scientists working on the X 59, A joint project between NASA and Lockheed Martin? The X 59 is an experimental supersonic jet designed to address one of the key barriers to mainstream supersonic flight, that sonic boom. This jet is designed to minimize the shock waves created by aircraft flying at [00:01:00] the speed of sound. Thanks to its revolutionary streamlined design. Engineers expect the X 59 to create more of a sonic thump than a boom. My colleague, Claire Riley got an exclusive up close look at the aircraft while it was being assembled. Click the link on your screen to check that out.
Speaker 1: NASA and Lockheed will get their first chance to see how their design works. Very soon. Engineers just installed the engine in November. The X 59 is scheduled to make its first test flight this year, and scientists will begin [00:01:30] what they call acoustic testing. That's when they'll fly the jet over a 30 mile array of microphones in a Mojave desert. The goal is to learn whether the X 59 Sonic thump is as quiet as predicted. If all goes as expected, NASA will begin testing the X 59 over a few select communities in the US as early as 2025.
Speaker 1: There was no shortage of startups touting their takes on the future of personal flying vehicles in 2022, but none of them peaked our interest quite like [00:02:00] the Jetson one. This is a recreational ultra light EV toll or electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle. Not meant to solve the climate crisis or revolutionized transportation. It's just designed for fun and maybe to make your friends a little jealous. Jetson one's founder told me earlier this year that he could put anyone in the vehicle and teach them to fly it in five minutes. Unlike helicopters and planes, there isn't a complicated array of buttons and switches and the pilot's left hand is the thrust lever and the right hand is a three access [00:02:30] joystick. It's powered by eight. Electric motors can hit 63 miles per hour and is a flight time of 20 minutes. Jetson one says it can continue to fly if any single motor goes out. There's also a ballistic parachute that only deploys at higher altitudes and a roll cage to protect a pilot. In the event of a low altitude crash, the Jetson one is priced at $92,000 US and the company says it will make its first deliveries by the end of 2023.
Speaker 1: [00:03:00] So what about those air taxis We keep getting promised. Dozens of aviation startups have been telling us for years that we're just a few years away from being able to order a ride to work or to the airport in an electric flying vehicle. Spoiler alert, it's not happening this year. So let's check in with a few of the companies that industry experts generally think are the most likely players in this space to make this dream a reality, Jovi Aviation is probably the closest to launching a real air taxi service. The [00:03:30] company first started testing its prototype EV to in 2018 and has since completed over 1000 test flights. Delta Airlines has agreed to invest up to 200 million in Jovi, and the two companies are planning to launch commercial air taxi service in New York and Los Angeles. Jovi cleared two out of four F AA system review certifications in 2022 and has said hopes to launch its service next year. Archer Aviation says by 2025 you'll be able to catch [00:04:00] a ride in its EV toll named midnight from Newark Airport to Manhattan for about a hundred bucks. Midnight is Archer's production model aircraft introduced in late 2022. Midnight hasn't flown yet, but Archer has been conducting test flights on its prototype vehicle called Maker. I saw a demonstration flight in November. It came within about 500 feet of us, and I can tell you it was not nearly as noisy as a helicopter.
Speaker 1: You can see my video on midnight by clicking that link on your screen. [00:04:30] Then there's Whisk. The company formerly known as Kittyhawk, unlike Archer and Joie Whisk has slammed to launch its air taxis autonomously. That's right. No pilot inside the vehicle though There would be a human controller on the ground watching up to 10 aircraft at once. Whisk hasn't said when it expects to launch service, but does predict it will have up to 5,000 aircraft in the sky by 2035. Of course, for any of these companies, they don't just need buy-in [00:05:00] from the FAA and the trust of their passengers. They need the infrastructure and the approval of cities they wanna operate in. Most of them expect to fly in and out of Verde ports, basically hubs for vertical takeoff and landing vehicles as well as drones.
Speaker 1: Speaking of drones, it's been about a decade since Amazon started promising us some of our packages would come to our front door via a flying delivery robot. So where are those delivery drones? Right before the new year, Amazon launched primea in two markets, [00:05:30] college Station, Texas, and Lockeford, California. That's according to a report from a Sacramento TV station. The company says this drone will be delivering packages up to five pounds in less than an hour from the time a customer places their order. Amazon expects to deliver up to 50,000 packages across the two markets in a single year, and it's worth noting that Walmart is already using drones to deliver packages in parts of Texas. Meanwhile, Elroy Air introduced its production model delivery drone, the Chaparral in 2022. [00:06:00] This drone can carry 500 pounds of cargo up to 300 miles away. Elroy has partnered with FedEx and the two companies plan to start testing a delivery model sometime this year. Okay, so we can expect to see a lot out of the aviation industry in 2023. So what do you think of all the technologies that we just saw, which are most likely to actually change our lives? Let me know in the comments below. If you enjoyed this video, don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to CNET for [00:06:30] more. What the future.
