the convertible aircraft design, funded by the european aircraft manufacturer airbus, called vahana (sanskrit: "vehicle"), started in 2016. it was being developed at acubed (a-cubed), the expanded project and partnership outpost of airbus in silicon valley. airbus said "our work on this demonstrator confirms our belief that fully autonomous vehicles will allow us to achieve the scale required of urban air mobility."to test the vahana concept, small models flew in santa clara, usa in 2017. acubed vahana was planned to become part of urban air mobility. in june 2017 at the paris air show the prototype vahana alpha one (n301vx) was publicly presented for the first time. january 31, 2018 the first flight took place in pendleton (oregon). the full-scale aircraft "alpha" demonstrator reached a height of 5 meters within 53 seconds. by august 2018, more than 25 hover flights had been completed and the transition to forward flight had been tested. airbus finished the vahana project in december 2019 in favor of the cityairbus. the last flight took place on november 14, 2019. 138 test flights with a total flight time of over 13 hours and a distance of 903 km were made.