Outbound Aerospace’s subscale STeVe makes first flight
March 24, 2025
Outbound Aerospace has made the first remotely-operated flight of its 1/8th scale blended wing body (BWB) concept, intended to inform the development of its upcoming ‘Olympic’ aircraft.
With callsign ‘STeVe’, the 22ft wingspan, 300lb BWB drone – designed, built and tested in-house by Outbound Aerospace – took off from Oregon, with its components having been created in Dallas and assembled in Seattle. The subscale demonstrator is intended to validate the company’s “novel manufacturing processes,” having completed its first full-power engine run and low-speed taxi three months ago.
Seattle-based startup Outbound Aerospace describes its BWB design as the “first fifth generation airliner, representing the first generational leap in airplane technology since the implementation of fly-by-wire”. Featuring an all-electric power-by-wire system architecture, which it says will entirely eliminate bleed air and hydraulic systems, the aircraft will also feature software-defined avionics. These, believe Outbound, will reduce maintenance spares, qualification and testing efforts.
Advanced additive manufacturing will be employed to produce molds and parts at scale, with which Outbound intends to achieve a 50% reduction in overall costs. Further details are scant, but as of December 2024, Outbound stated its intention to unveil “more details, features and specifications” over the next three months.
In July 2024, Outbound revealed it had raised $500,000 to develop its concept, which hopes to feature a number of patented manufacturing processes.
