In the last few years, the electric VTOL world has been inundated with an avalanche of cash, talent and ideas – it’s been a long time since there was this much fresh energy in aviation. Companies like Joby, Lilium, Archer, Vertical Aerospace, eHang and others have gone public at sky-high valuations, promising to revolutionise urban and inter-city transport with clean, quiet, affordable electric air taxis.

Indeed, the whole thing is starting to look very sensible and corporate, and it’s easy to forget that this movement is only just entering its teenage years. Not that long ago, the pinnacle of eVTOL achievement was a brave German physicist sitting on a yoga ball in the air.

So as long as we’re sitting here beaming with pride celebrating New Atlas’s 20th year covering significant moments in all manner of human achievements, we thought it’d be a great chance to look back at our early impressions of the eVTOL movement, and a few milestone events that we’ve seen in the 13 years since the idea first came to the public consciousness in a NASA engineer’s 2009 research project, sparking the revolutionary fire that burns today.

Check out the original render video of Mark Moore’s Puffin personal air vehicle below.

As well as the early ideas and designs, it’s also pretty amazing to glance back at our first look at a few companies that are now working on colossal mass-production plans with billion dollar-plus war chests. Some of the promised timelines will draw a smile, too!

We hope you enjoyed this brief retrospective. If our work here at New Atlas is valuable to you, the best way you can support our coverage is with a subscription to ad-free New Atlas Plus. It’s half-price during March at just US$10 for a year, and your contribution would make our day!