Indian startup Nalwa Aero has flown a subscale model of its planned Aphulas box-wing electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft, according to Aviation Week. The test aircraft demonstrated both hover and forward flight, providing the company with a flight-test milestone as it develops the design for a planned eVTOL air taxi.
The Aphulas configuration uses eight tilting propellers arranged on the aircraft’s upper and lower wing sections. The propellers are intended to support the aircraft’s vertical-takeoff-and-landing configuration as well as its forward-flight configuration, although the report does not describe the aircraft’s performance during the test.
A subscale test aircraft
The aircraft flown by Nalwa was a subscale model, rather than the full-size Aphulas air taxi. That distinction is central to the status of the program: the reported flight demonstrates that the model has operated in hover and forward flight, but it is not an announcement of a certification milestone, commercial service or passenger-carrying operation.
Nalwa Aero founder and CEO Kuljeet Sandhu posted about the flight. Aviation Week identified the aircraft as a box-wing tiltprop eVTOL, a layout that combines a box-wing airframe with propellers capable of changing orientation between vertical and forward-flight operations.
What the flight establishes
The reported test places Nalwa’s development effort beyond a purely conceptual stage. The company has now flown a model of the Aphulas design in the two flight regimes identified in the report:
- Hover, using the aircraft’s vertical-lift configuration
- Forward flight, using the aircraft’s wing and tiltprop arrangement
- Eight tilting propellers mounted on the upper and lower wing sections
No range, speed, payload, endurance, aircraft size, test location or certification schedule was provided in the report. Those details would be needed to assess how the subscale flight relates to a full-size aircraft and to any future air taxi operation.
From model testing to an air taxi program
Nalwa is presenting Aphulas as a planned electric air taxi, but the reported flight remains an early development step. A subscale aircraft can be used to examine the behavior of an airframe and propulsion arrangement before work advances to a larger vehicle. The announcement therefore concerns the progress of the design and its flight testing, not an operational launch.
The flight also gives the program a concrete point of reference within the expanding eVTOL field. Nalwa must still move from the flown model to the aircraft intended for service and address the subsequent development and certification requirements associated with a passenger-carrying eVTOL. Aviation Week’s report identifies the hover and forward-flight demonstration as the latest publicly described milestone for the Aphulas program.
