Air taxi operators are unfazed by the 200 or so organizations designing vertical take-off electric aircraft. Follow the economics and the orders not the fluid investments from people seeking the next Tesla. Those getting the huge investments often lack significant orders.

The term distributed propulsion (DP) primarily refers to a fundamentally new form of wing that combines aerodynamics with thrust and zero emissions, resulting in numerous benefits.

The replacement of aircraft makers will be brutal - no not Airbus and Boeing, the other big names, starting with those making light aircraft, then those making regional aircraft. Stuck in the past, these cannot make what is now needed.

Wednesday 19 May 2021 - The webinar looks at everything manned going electric from piloted freight to passengers flown without a pilot. From conventional takeoff and landing eCTOL to the glamorous eVTOL projects awash with billions of dollars of investment, there are hybrid, fuel cell and retrofit opportunities.

In 2017, after four years of setbacks and crashes, Alphabet shut its project flying solar-powered fixed-wing drones in the upper atmosphere to beam the internet to those cut-off. They have now ended their upper-atmosphere balloon version as well.

IDTechEx's recent market research report on Drones and their associated technologies predicts the drone market to be over $22Bn by 2041.

In the new IDTechEx report, "Manned Electric Aircraft 2020-2030" the analyst praises manufacturers such as Bye Aerospace for "walking before they try to run". Like Tesla with cars, they started with two-seater pure-electric vehicles and progressed to four - in this case, fixed-wing aircraft. Sales of these as air taxis and pilot trainers are booming with Bye alone attracting $165 million in business in about one year.

It is easy to say that, although small electric aircraft are at last selling, they are a negligible part of the overall aircraft market. Mistake. They will work up from the bottom to be mainstream. Airbus, Boeing and Rolls Royce know this, but many others are sleeping through the future. Some of the successes are from small companies.

Expect seven-times the air traffic in 2050 increasing greenhouse gas X4 unless something radical happens. Elon Musk has made interesting statements about electric aircraft over the years. His Tesla will survive and prosper: if Tesla investors stop investing the Chinese will snap it up. Either way, somewhere down its list of priorities will be reinventing pure electric aircraft, so what does Tesla bring to the table?

Not long ago it was just dreams. Small internal-combustion aircraft provide taxi services, serve the declining market for private flying and a few other needs. Some are over 30 years old because total cost of ownership is an issue. Designing electric replacements seemed like entering a dust bowl.

In IDTechEx Research's latest report Additive Manufacturing and Lightweight Materials for Aerospace and Defense 2018-2028, the focus is on advanced lightweight materials and the rise of additive manufacturing.

IDTechEx will be hosting a free webinar on Thursday 24 May titled Robots and drones: How everything is changing.

Dr Peter Harrop, IDTechEx Chairman interviews George Bye, CEO of Sun Flyer at the IDTechEx Show! USA 2017.

Terrafugia's mission is to create practical flying cars that enable a new dimension of personal freedom. Terrafugia (ter-ra-FOO-jee-ah) is derived from the Latin for "Escape the Earth".

IDTechEx will be hosting a free webinar on Thursday 8 February titled Manned Electric Aircraft 2018-2028.

Nothing lasts forever: things wear out. However, there is a huge pent up demand for "perpetual" autonomous drones for everything from security to surveying, meteorology and even power generation.

Beaming the internet to the 4.5 billion people that do not have it should be massively profitable.

Dick Wallis, CEO of Positioning Systems in the UK has sent IDTechEx a visionary proposal for a new combined airport, smart city and green electricity supply in Wales in the UK.

Helium has important applications in MRI machines, welding, manufacturing semiconductors, deep-sea diving and blimps. If it was readily available and affordable, its use in EVs such as underwater vehicles and aircraft would increase greatly.