Those flying into Toronto Markham Airport (CNU8) this week might have encountered an unusual flying object. A Texas company has wrapped up a week of flight testing of a passenger carrying drone at the small airport north of Toronto. Astro Aerospace obtained a special flight operations certificate from Transport Canada to conduct the tests on Elroy, its idea for an autonomous Electrical Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) system. “Our flights this week were a success,” said Astro spokesman Michael White. “Wednesday we did a 4.5-minute dynamic flight, multiple manoeuvres, 60-foot altitude, 50 kmh, with very good data collected to continue to help move us forward.”
Elroy is designed to seat two and fly at about 40 knots for up to 25 minutes. It’s intended for urban markets where point-to-point transportation can be a challenge. “Our mission is to make self-flying unmanned and manned vehicles available to anyone, at anytime, from anywhere, and to turn this new and exciting aircraft into an everyday means of transportation,” said a company news release. The aircraft is designed for both manned and unmanned flight but it’s not clear if anyone was on it at Markham.