It?s not merely the roads in and around Silicon Valley where advanced transportation systems are being developed and vetted. The sky above the Bay Area is a prime proving ground for the latest aviation technology.
The newest aircraft to join that field may soon be the Vahana, a yet-to-be-built aircraft from A³, the regional office of Airbus Group in San Jose, California. Engineers are working on a personal-transportation craft capable of vertical takeoffs and landings, making runways and roads obsolete. Also unneeded: pilots. If Airbus succeeds, the Vahana would use autonomous and unmanned technology to deliver people or packages to their destinations, potentially making the eight-rotor craft the first certified passenger aircraft without a pilot. Without referencing a certain Hanna-Barbera cartoon that made the idea of a flying vehicle for everyday commuting a novel future proposition, that appears to be the precise use case for the Airbus venture.
?We seek to help enable truly vertical cities by opening up urban airways in a predictable and controlled manner,? wrote Rodin Lyasoff, the project?s chief executive officer. ?We believe that full automation will allow us to achieve higher safety by minimizing human error. Our aircraft will follow predetermined flight paths, with only minor deviations if obstacle avoidance is needed.”

Early renderings of the craft were released last month; Lyasoff says the company has completed the vehicle design and intends to build a ...