London-based urban air mobility company Bellwether Industries has today introduced its Oryx eVTOL aircraft, said to be a third-generation aircraft model design with a new airframe.

Oryx is initially sized to carry one pilot and two passengers, but will carry up to four passengers in future, retaining the key feature of its volar hidden propulsion system and estimated at 6.2 metres in length and 3.8 metres in width, slightly bigger than an SUV car.

It will be capable of completing a journey from Heathrow Airport to Canary Wharf, which takes 50 to 100 minutes by car, within eight minutes at a cruise speed of 140 kilometres per hour.

Bellwether senior director of mobility and strategy, Vidyut Jacob, said: “Oryx is one step ahead in the journey to the ultimate goal of realising the potential of volar propulsion, which will focus on city compatibility.”

Volar has a hidden propulsion system and the ability to take off and land vertically. Bellwether’s team challenged the stereotype of an aircraft with fixed wings or external propellers, and has been carving a contrasting path since the original hovercraft model Gazelle in 2015.

Bellwether founder and CEO, Daniel Chen, added: “The design for flying cars has been explored for over a century. The experience and current technologies in aviation are a critical foundation without fear of innovation.”

The current airframe design is claimed to secure improvements in flight efficiency and control to sustain stable performance for Oryx, with additional lift generation prolonging the flight duration by using multiple control surfaces.

Bellwether expects that Oryx volar propulsion can cope with a complicated urban environment, and will debut in 2023 for the first time in Dubai with partners Enata Aerospace and Inmarsat.

In May, Bellwether Industries collaborated with Inmarsat to explore how satellite communications can optimise the future of intra-city transportation services, with a focus on safety, regulation and innovation.