The U.S. Air Force Agility Prime Program: Progress in 2021 and Goals for 2022
Agility Prime has worked with numerous companies to award more than $100 million in contracts, with four company recipients going so far as to achieve military airworthiness.
The Agility Prime program—launched in May 2020 as a U.S. Air Force effort within the AFWERX program—has accelerated electric air taxi technologies and supported commercial investment in electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. Agility Prime has worked with numerous companies to award more than $100 million in contracts, with four company recipients going so far as to achieve military airworthiness. In 2021, the Agility Prime program made significant progress, and 2022 is primed to be a year filled with more milestones en route to sector benchmarks of greater magnitude. On the horizon, for instance, is the 2023 goal for beginning eVTOL operations with an initial use case.
Collaborations with the armed forces proved fruitful this past year. In March 2021, a LIFT eVTOL aircraft was transported using a military aircraft for the first time. LIFT Aircraft, which was chosen for the Agility Prime program in April 2020, accomplished this task in collaboration with airmen from the 355th Wing and 621st Contingency Response Wing. Hexa—LIFT’s eVTOL aircraft—was loaded onto a HC-130J Combat King II and flown from Springfield, Ohio, to Austin, Texas.
While the operation was successful, there is still room for growth in streamlining the flight experience. The load time, for instance, on Hexa’s flight was 40 minutes. Though the flight operation was a proof-of-concept effort, according to Jace McGowan—flight development engineer and chief pilot with LIFT—trimming time is a priority. “We are also working to get the time from ‘unloading it off the aircraft’ to ‘ready to fly’ down, under two hours,” he said.
The Hexa eVTOL has numerous applications including personnel recovery and initial airfield assessment missions. AFWERX Prime division chief James Bieryla spotlighted technological versatility, noting that his team’s aim is “to find emerging technology with dual capabilities and transition to deploy them rapidly, after working with many mission partners, to meet the needs of our operators and warfighters,” he stated in a release from the official USAF website. Moving forward, the 355th Wing will test more in-depth use cases to further broaden the capabilities of an eVTOL within rescue and attack operation contexts.
In the new year, LIFT will also be looking to broaden eVTOL applications outside of the tactical contexts characterizing their work this past year. To that end, by the end of 2022, LIFT plans to offer flights for members of the public, according to statements made by LIFT Director of Business Development, Kevin Rustagi, in an interview with Avionics International. The company is exploring use cases such as cargo transportation, first response, and water landing. The cargo version of the aircraft could make its appearance this year, and a vision for water landing could be coming sooner rather than later. “In a future that’s not too far out,” Rustagi suggested, “the pilot could jump out to perform a water rescue operation and have the aircraft hover in place.”
LIFT has also set a goal of raising $5 million from public investments through the equity crowdfunding platform StartEngine, and the company has raised over $2.5 million to date. Along the way, LIFT is making further improvements to the eVTOL’s design. As the team at LIFT focuses on the HEXA’s single-seat layout, they hope to extend its range while also ensuring the robustness of the flight computer.
The U.S. Air Force’s first airworthiness approval for a manned electric aircraft was awarded in May 2021 to BETA Technologies after over a year of examinations and evaluations by Air Force engineers. BETA—one of the partners of the Agility Prime program—had recently entered a new phase of flight testing. After the airworthiness approval, the company could begin flying its ALIA aircraft as part of the Prime program, and the Air Force gained access to BETA’s two immersive eVTOL simulators and training facilities.
Col. Nathan Diller—Director at AFWERX—looks forward to the enhanced abilities of Air Force acquisition professionals “to make data-driven decisions informed by real assessments of military utility,” based on the agreement with BETA. “The engineering, test, and acquisition professionals in Air Force Materiel Command have phenomenal expertise to help accelerate this and other emerging markets,” he noted in a press release announcing the Agility Prime program agreement with BETA.
A spokesperson for BETA shared in a recent Q&A with Avionics how the USAF partnership includes work to define range, altitude capabilities, endurance, and payload limits in addition to numerous mission profile evaluations for the ALIA aircraft. In 2022 and beyond, the team will test “even more specialized cargo and logistics missions as the partnership continues,” in concert with the USAF, adhering to their protocols. ”These exercises help inform better-designed aircraft, and push us toward commercial viability. One example of this lies in our ground vibration tests last year. With the support of USAF, we were able to access research labs, experts, and equipment as we conducted this vital testing.”
In May 2021, AFWERX’s Agility Prime program and partner Kittyhawk marked a significant achievement by conducting a successful operational exercise. A month later, Kittyhawk’s Heaviside eVTOL aircraft was assessed for its performance in medical evacuation and personnel recovery. The exercise also allowed Kitty Hawk’s team to demonstrate the Heaviside aircraft’s remote flying functions.
In July, shortly after the Heaviside’s medical evacuation exercise, AFWERX shared the news that the Air Force had awarded airworthiness approval to Kittyhawk. This designation marked a meaningful milestone since it allowed Kittyhawk’s aircraft to enter its next phase of flight testing in coordination with the Air Force.
“Kittyhawk’s core technologies—distributed electric propulsion, fly-by-wire flight controls using redundant flight control computers, remote piloting that evolves into true autonomy, and low-cost manufacturing techniques—will all be instrumental in meeting [the Air Force’s] unique requirements,” stated Matt Croce, Director of Service Operations at Kittyhawk, in an interview over email with Avionics. Croce also commented that the team is in the early stages of development on a new technology that could be transformative for future transportation. As for the upcoming year, he said, "it is our intention to conduct our first remotely-piloted flight with a human on board as well as expand on our beyond-visual-line-of-sight capabilities that we demonstrated late last year.”
The Air Force’s commitment to the advancement of eVTOL aircraft was also evident in its selection of software company Tangram Flex to sign a Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) contract in December 2020. A second STTR contract was granted to Tangram in August 2021 as an extension of the original contract, serving to advance drone and air taxi cybersecurity within the Agility Prime program. Ohio State University will partner with Tangram for this second phase of the contract, focusing on streamlining drone and eVTOL analysis, testing, and ensuring its vehicles’ safety within the Agility Prime program.
In September, the Air Force and Archer Aviation announced an agreement to explore possible Air Force applications of Archer’s Maker eVTOL aircraft. Flight test data provided from Archer will inform AFWERX’s Agility Prime program of the Maker aircraft’s suitability for various purposes.
In December, Archer became one of just a few companies to receive its Special Airworthiness Certificate from the FAA. During that same month, the company also announced that its Maker aircraft completed its first successful hover flight. Archer will focus next on including hover envelope expansion and transition envelope expansion in their flight test campaign. The partnership between the Agility Prime program and Archer is dedicated to discovering potential applications for the Maker aircraft in the coming year.
Another milestone for the AFWERX Agility Prime program in 2021 came from one of its partners, Moog Aircraft Group, which created a prototype eVTOL. The U.S. Air Force will test its aircraft, the SureFly S250, for technical maturity in addition to unmanned flight capability, costs, and risks.
Agility Prime program manager Darshan Divakaran commented on the limitations of full battery-electric propulsion systems in a statement published to their website. With the SureFly, “the Air Force will get a more in-depth understanding of hybrid electric power system technology and also Moog’s aircraft control systems," explained Divakaran. In completing the process for military airworthiness through the Air Force, Moog’s SureFly will be able to continue flight tests at an unmanned aerial system (UAS) test site on an ongoing basis.
One of Agility Prime’s 2022 goals is to enable routine initial skills training for operators of AAM vehicles. An October 2021 announcement noted that Air Education and Training Command set up Detachment 62 with the aim of establishing training for the Agility Prime program as well as setting eVTOL certification standards.
During the keynote presentation at the AUVSI (Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International) Unmanned Systems Defense virtual event in 2021, Col. Diller said that an eVTOL aircraft could be used by the U.S. Air Force’s Agility Prime program as early as 2023. Over the course of 2022, multiple different use cases will be analyzed in order to achieve operational capability for the Air Force by next year.
In December, the FAA gave Joby Aviation its Special Airworthiness Certification for Joby’s second pre-production eVTOL prototype, and less than a week later, the USAF granted the company its Airworthiness Approval for the same aircraft. Both approvals will increase Joby’s capacity for flight testing in 2022, and the eVTOL will soon be put into service within the Agility Prime program. Joby was the first eVTOL company to sign a G-1 (stage 4) certification basis with the FAA, which happened in 2020.
Joby Aviation continues to work towards a commercial operations launch in 2024. In a Q&A with Avionics, a spokesperson from the company said: “Last year, our pre-production prototype flew 5,300 miles, and as part of our continuing work to validate and test our aircraft, we plan to conduct more flight tests in the coming year in partnership with AFWERX and other government supporters.” Speaking on the partnership with the Department of Defense, Joby’s representative stated that it is a “’win-win’ opportunity for [Joby Aviation] to learn, and for the DoD to utilize zero operating emissions aircraft with compelling costs to support our troops.”
The Air Force’s Agility Prime initiative is dedicated to establishing new technology transition paths and to field operationally relevant air mobility in the year 2023. It aims to combine three technology sectors: electric (large distributed propulsion systems), increasing autonomy and Simplified Vehicle Operations, and advancing manufacturing and materials. The program is poised to meet its goals for 2023 and beyond, and in the coming year, the Agility Prime team, along with its partners, will build on the progress made in 2021.
