Eternal’s Deepinder Goyal made two big announcements but it is not about Zomato or Blinkit; here is what all is next

In his first post for the day on his social media platforms, Goyal shared an exciting update on LAT Aerospace, Goyal and his COO Surobhi Das’ aircraft startup.

He announced that the company’s first fully-electric uSTOL (un-crewed Short Take-off and Landing) technology demonstrator is now ready for its initial flight tests. He claimed that the test technology is capable of an endurance of 60 minutes, enabling autonomous travel equivalent to the distance between Mumbai and Pune. 

“Our first uSTOL technology demonstrator is ready. Today, we have a fully-electric, fixed-wing UAV, built from scratch and almost ready for flight. To make this possible in just a few months, we built our entire flight lab from scratch. Every bench, every tool, every fixture designed to push the aircraft closer to flight every single day. This aircraft is designed to takeoff in 40 meters (thanks to a massive CL of 5 which is more than 2x of what you see on most aircraft). Endurance of 60 minutes. With a range of being able to cruise autonomously from Mumbai to Pune. Ground rolls done. As I type this, we are pushing hard to get the bird in the air. Hopefully it doesn't blow up. Either way, I promise videos of our attempt sometime over the next few weeks. We have learnt so much over the last few months, and I am sure that there are a lot of hard learnings yet in store for us. Our research on hybrid-electric propulsion is already in full swing, and we’ve also started building a team to begin development on our own gas turbine engines,” Goyal wrote.

He added, “this is one of the hardest engineering challenges possible. Our team is relentlessly at it to make this a reality before the turn of this decade.”

He then went on to share the update on his other big project of life longevity and age rejuvenation.

“Once upon a time, people believed the Earth was flat. And then they didn’t. Then they believed the sun revolved around the Earth. Until they didn’t. Humanity has built rockets, sequenced genomes, and cloned cells. Yet, in all our brilliance, we may have missed something glaringly simple. At Continue, we’ve been chasing a crazy insight into why we age; a pattern that’s been hiding in plain sight for eternity. We’ve tried desperately to disprove it. We couldn’t. Two years later, clues from biology, physics, evolution, and medicine are all pointing in the same direction. In 48 hours, I’ll share what we’ve found and how one element of our environment may hold the key to slowing human aging,” Goyal wrote.

While Goyal did not give more details on his startup, it clearly implies that this is somewhat like the Bryan Johnson experiment with the only difference that Goyal is not testing these on himself rather organising it much comprehensively to be able to expand this commercially eventually.