The Korea Aerospace Administration is starting development of a five-seat-class hybrid vertical takeoff and landing aircraft that uses both batteries and an engine.

The Korea Aerospace Administration on Aug. 25 held an industry-academia-research public hearing in Daejeon to develop an independently produced domestic five-seat-class hybrid vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. The event gathered views on the development direction and discussed ways to identify additional public demand such as firefighting, maritime rescue and medical transport.

The Korea Aerospace Administration plans to localise core technologies such as generators, avionics and distributed propulsion over five years from 2028 to 2032. It also plans to secure four prototype aircraft by the end of the project. The aircraft under development is designed to carry 5 people including the pilot, with targets of a range of at least 200 km, a payload of at least 600 kg and an operating time of at least 60 minutes.

Existing future aircraft have mainly been developed based on pure batteries. The Korea Aerospace Administration sees that applying a hybrid method could increase boarding weight, range and operating time compared with electric-propulsion aircraft. It also sees that securing power margin could improve the ability to respond to contingencies.

It will reflect aircraft certification requirements from the design stage, with commercialisation in mind. It will work with relevant ministries to prepare systems needed for certification and will also push follow-up projects so that, after development is completed, it can move to rapid commercialisation.

The Korea Aerospace Administration will survey potential demand organisations, including relevant ministries, local governments and public institutions, through Sept. 9 on demand for use in public missions such as firefighting, maritime rescue, medical transport and logistics, and reflect the results in project planning.

Chang-heon Han (한창헌), head of the aviation innovation division at the Korea Aerospace Administration, said, "Hybrid vertical takeoff and landing aircraft are a technology with large potential that can change people's daily lives as multiple advanced technologies interact." He added, "We plan to reflect public hearing opinions and demand survey results and apply in November to the Science and Technology Innovation Headquarters as an infrastructure-building research and development project."