After Jetson, Air One enters personal eVTOL vehicle market
In the wake of last week’s unveiling of a Swedish single-seat personal electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicle, Israeli company Air One now introduces a two-seat rival to allow individual consumers to fly themselves around.
Flying car startup Air has rolled out its dual-person eVTOL for pre-orders, ahead of expected deliveries in 2024. Now in the demonstration prototype phase, the Air One is described as having a maximum 110-mile range – or one hour aloft – on a single charge, reaching top speeds of 255 mph. Rejuicing a flat battery to full capacity is said to take an hour, with a 20% to 80% jolt requiring 30 minutes.
Though Air has not communicated price for its now on-order aircraft, press reports quote company officials saying they hope to keep it in the same range as high-end cars.
Introduction of Air One comes less than a week after Sweden’s eVTOL vehicle maker Jetson presented its one-seat personal aircraft, not illogically dubbed ONE. That model is billed as reaching top speeds of 63 mph, with most other specs given applying only to dimensions. Like the Air One, the Jetson ONE can be partially broken down to adapt to limited parking or storage spaces.
Thought Jetson’s eVTOL seems a bit farther down the road to manufacturing and delivery, it’s similar to Air One in its trend-bucking target market. Most flying car producers are aiming for somewhat larger and longer-range vehicles for air taxi, delivery, or similar use. Jetson and Air are focusing on individual consumer operation, and are well beyond the proof of concept stage most competitors are still in.
Air continues conducting uncrewed test flights of prototypes, and working toward Federal Aviation Administration certification it hopes to obtain by 2023. Its priority market will be the US, where it expects to sell an average of 15,000 Air eVTOL vehicles per year. Pre-orders are described as being in triple digits.
People concerned at the thought of their neighbors or friends jumping out of seriously dinged-up cars and taking off in a flying machine don’t have to fret, says Air cofounder and CEO Rani Plaut. Air One’s navigation controls and onboard system operates using a “fly by intent” software that translates what pilots have tried to do into the safest actions that should be taken. Think of it as Auto-Tune for the Cher pilots of the world.
That kind of human-helping tech is a given in next-generation air mobility craft, says Plaut. And because it is, he believes anyone insisting that people taking to the skies must be trained, certified pilots are going to have to be educated about what’s actually on the way.
“The future of mobility is in the sky, but to get there we need to build consumer confidence in eVTOLs as a legitimate mode of everyday transport and develop vehicles on a mass-scale to bring that vision to life,” says Plaut. “Air One is our hat in the ring, simultaneously showing consumers the first in a line of diversified, playful models for personal flight and demonstrating cutting-edge technology that will enable high-volume production and scalability.”
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Davina McCall has said her short-term memory is “a bit remiss” as she recovers from brain tumour surgery.
Speaking from her bed, the visibly emotional TV presenter posted a short video updating her Instagram followers on her condition, saying it had been a “mad” time.
She expressed an “enormous heartfelt thank you” to people who had messaged her after she revealed this month she had a benign brain tumour, a colloid cyst, which she described as “very rare”.
Looking bright, but with a visibly bruised left eye, McCall said: “My short-term memory is a bit remiss.
“But that is something I can work on, so I’m really happy about that. I’m writing everything down, to keep myself feeling safe.”
She added: “It’s been mad, and it’s just really nice to be back home, I’m on the other side.”
In a message posted with the video, she reiterated her thanks for all the support she has received, adding: “Had a great night’s sleep in my own bed. Have a couple of sleeps during the day which keeps my brain clear… Slowly, slowly…”
When she first shared her diagnosis, she said chances of having it were “three in a million” and that she had discovered it several months previously after a company offered her a health scan in return for giving a menopause talk.
The 57-year-old star said support from her fans had “meant the world”.
She said she was being “brilliantly looked after” by her partner, hairdresser Michael Douglas, and her stepmother, Gabby, who she calls mum.
Becoming tearful, the presenter said: “I’d quickly like to say big up the stepmums. I don’t really say thank you to Gabby enough. She’s been an amazing rock my whole life.”
McCall was estranged from her birth mother, Florence McCall, who died in 2008.
McCall with 2002 Big Brother winner Kate Lawler. Pic: Rex Features
With a catch in her voice, McCall went on: “I’ve got a massive dose of vitamin G – I’m just really grateful. I’ve always been really lucky in my life, but I feel unbelievably grateful right now. So, thanks for everything, all of you.
“I’m on the mend, I’m resting and sleeping loads and I feel really good. I’m just very lucky.”
Stars including presenter Alison Hammond, singer Craig David and radio host Zoe Ball quickly shared their delight at the positive update.
McCall rose to fame presenting on MTV in the mid-1990s, and later on Channel 4’s Streetmate, before becoming a household name as the host of Big Brother from 2000 to 2010.
McCall with her MBE, alongside her partner Michael Douglas and her daughter Holly Robertson. Pic: PA
She’s gone on to present programmes across the networks, the most recent being ITV dating show My Mum, Your Dad.
Last year, McCall was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2023 Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting.
Married twice, McCall has three children, two daughters and a son, with her second husband, presenter Matthew Robertson.
She has lived with Douglas since 2022, and they present a weekly lifestyle podcast together, Making The Cut.
Barbara Taylor Bradford, the bestselling novelist who wrote A Woman Of Substance, has died at the age of 91.
The Leeds-born author, who sold more than 90 million books, died peacefully at her home on Sunday after a short illness and was “surrounded by loved ones to the very end”, a spokeswoman said.
Taylor Bradford, who was often labelled “the grand dame of blockbusters”, hit the big time when A Woman Of Substance was published in 1979, making her an overnight success.
The story sold millions of copies and traced the journey of Emma Harte from life as a servant in rural Yorkshire to heading a business empire.
The rags to riches story was followed by many other successful books with the author’s works being published in more than 40 languages across 90 countries.
Pic: Caroll Taveras/Bradford Enterprises/PA
The author on her 21st birthday. Pic: Bradford Enterprises/PA
Charlie Redmayne, chief executive of publisher HarperCollins, said the author was a “natural storyteller”, adding: “Barbara Taylor Bradford was a truly exceptional writer whose first book, the international bestseller A Woman Of Substance, changed the lives of so many who read it – and still does to this day.”
Taylor Bradford, who was made an OBE in 2007 for services to literature, wrote a total of 40 novels during her career – her most recent was The Wonder Of It All, published last year.
Pic: Caroll Taveras/Bradford Enterprises/PA
Taylor Bradford with her husband Robert in 1993. Pic: PA
Born in May 1933 as the only child of Winston and Freda Taylor, she worked as a typist for the Yorkshire Evening Post before becoming a reporter and then the paper’s first woman’s editor.
At the age of 20, she moved to London and worked in Fleet Street for Woman’s Own and the London Evening News.
She met her husband, American film producer Robert Bradford, in 1961 and they married in London on Christmas Eve in 1963 before moving to New York the following year.
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The couple were married for 55 years until he died from a stroke in 2019.
Following a private funeral in New York, the author will be buried alongside her late husband at the city’s Westchester Hills Cemetery.
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