{"id":65871,"date":"2025-02-17T09:52:43","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T09:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/?p=65871"},"modified":"2025-02-17T09:52:43","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T09:52:43","slug":"india-plans-vertical-take-off-air-ambulances-iit-firm-gets-1-billion-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/?p=65871","title":{"rendered":"India Plans Vertical Take-Off Air Ambulances, IIT Firm Gets $1 Billion Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>India will soon join a select-few nations globally to start an on-road vertical take-off and landing air ambulance service across the country. An over $1 billion deal has been signed in this regard, according to which an IIT-Madras based electric aircraft startup &#8211; ePlane Company &#8211; will supply 788 air ambulances.<\/p>\n<p>These 788 eVTOL or Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing air ambulances will be delivered to ICATT &#8211; India&#8217;s leading air ambulance firm, which will then deploy these aircraft across every district in India.<\/p>\n<p>The deal &#8211; a non-binding agreement- assumes significance as Indian cities and towns grapple with ever-increasing vehicular traffic. eVTOLs will begin by providing essential services like facilitating medical emergencies. Being electric vehicles, they will also ensure that the environment is not adversely affected.<\/p>\n<p>India&#8217;s eVTOL market has gained a lot of attention in recent years with the government also looking to ease airspace to a limited extent to facilitate transportation and delivery services by eVTOLs and drones respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the leading startups of eVTOL aircraft in India include Archer Aviation, Sarla Aviation, and ePlane Company. App-based taxi service firms like Uber are also developing and testing prototypes to begin air taxi services, which will give big city commuters a chance to avoid traffic snarls.<\/p>\n<p>For essential services like air ambulances, ePlane Company is aiming to begin operations by the last quarter of 2026. The firm will have a production capability of 100 units per year, said its founder Satya Chakravarthy, in an interview to news agency Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Chakravarthy is a professor at IIT-Madras &#8211; which is where his startup ePlane Company was incubated. While his billion-dollar deal for air ambulances is done, he is seeking another $100 million to manufacture and test prototypes of other types of eVTOL aircraft and get its required certification. So far, the firm has raised $20 million from investors.<\/p>\n<p>ePlane Company is working on three different prototypes of air ambulances based on the requirement in different geographies and population density. These aircraft will accommodate a pilot, a paramedic, a patient, and a stretcher, along with essential life-saving medical devices and medical kits. The air ambulances will have a top speed of 200 kmph and a range of between 110 kilometers and 200 kilometers per battery charge.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We can ramp up our production and put things into the market to good use much more effectively with an air ambulance than directly going to an air taxi,&#8221; Mr Chakravarthy said, adding that &#8220;It&#8217;s possible for us to ramp up air ambulances a lot more organically, compared to having to go to a rush with an air taxi.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><small><em>(Inputs from Reuters)<\/em><\/small><br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u200bIndia will soon join a select-few nations globally to start an on-road vertical take-off and landing air ambulance service across the country.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>India will soon join a select-few nations globally to start an on-road vertical take-off and landing air ambulance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":65872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/pdupigus_eplane-company-iit-madras-evtol-aircraft_625x300_17_February_25-wXrkCA.jpeg",1200,738,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/pdupigus_eplane-company-iit-madras-evtol-aircraft_625x300_17_February_25-wXrkCA-150x150.jpeg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/pdupigus_eplane-company-iit-madras-evtol-aircraft_625x300_17_February_25-wXrkCA-300x185.jpeg",300,185,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/pdupigus_eplane-company-iit-madras-evtol-aircraft_625x300_17_February_25-wXrkCA-768x472.jpeg",640,393,true],"large":["https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/pdupigus_eplane-company-iit-madras-evtol-aircraft_625x300_17_February_25-wXrkCA-1024x630.jpeg",640,394,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/pdupigus_eplane-company-iit-madras-evtol-aircraft_625x300_17_February_25-wXrkCA.jpeg",1200,738,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/pdupigus_eplane-company-iit-madras-evtol-aircraft_625x300_17_February_25-wXrkCA.jpeg",1200,738,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/pdupigus_eplane-company-iit-madras-evtol-aircraft_625x300_17_February_25-wXrkCA-825x575.jpeg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/pdupigus_eplane-company-iit-madras-evtol-aircraft_625x300_17_February_25-wXrkCA-590x410.jpeg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"","author_link":"https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/?author=0"},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/?cat=1\" rel=\"category\">Uncategorized<\/a>","tag_info":"Uncategorized","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/65872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alertindianews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}