zepp.solutions has an Aeronautical Solution

Dean Sigler Announcements, Electric Aircraft Components, Electric Powerplants, Fuel Cells, hydrogen, Hydrogen Fuel, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Working With the NLR zepp.solutions is a multi-faceted Dutch firm intent on finding ways to apply hydrogen propulsion systems to sea, land, and aeronautical applications.  Their ultimate product will be the conversion of an eighty-passenger fossil-fuel powered commuter liner into a zero-emission vehicle that loses a few paying passenger to the goal of flying in clean air.  Working with the The Netherlands Aerospace Center (NLR), zepp will start with a Pipistrel Electro Velis as a proof-of-concept machine that will test new fuel cells and associated gear. zepp describes the large-scale partnership of which it is a part.  “This major Dutch partnership aims at building a hydrogen system for aircraft, completely green, from fuel to propulsion. The system will be scalable to larger aircraft. And it is entirely of Dutch origin. This will make the Netherlands the world’s leading supplier of hydrogen-powered aircraft,” according to zepp. “Hydrogen Aircraft Powertrain and Storage System (HAPSS)* is an entirely Dutch public-private partnership, set up …

Stralis – Audacious Australian Startup

Dean Sigler Announcements, Electric Aircraft Components, Electric Powerplants, Fuel Cells, hydrogen, Hydrogen Fuel, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Stralis is an Australian startup with great ambition and some pretty audacious ideas.  Bob Criner, the firm’s Co-founder and CEO (with Stuart Johnstone who is also Chief Technical Officer or CTO),  gives a quick overview of those ambitions and the unique solutions he and his team are developing. Solutions include hydrogen-powered aircraft powered by fuel cells that are six times lighter than competing types.  The  certainly thinner, based on images from the company.  Stralis has, “…filed our provisional patent application for our our high-temperature PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) fuel stack design.”  The firm has also been completing several rounds of fund raising from investors and building a customer base, with, “$263M in Letters of Intent from a range of customers across 5 countries,” for propulsion systems and aircraft. Bonnie and Clyde With the power system ready, the team created an airborne test bed (Bonnie) and a ground-based power systems test unit (Clyde) to demonstrate what their systems can do. The …

Kasaero Flies a Hydrogen Amphibian

Dean Sigler Announcements, Batteries, Electric Aircraft Components, Electric Powerplants, Fuel Cells, hydrogen, Hydrogen Fuel, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Kaesaero, a company specializing in unique aircraft, flew an ultralight hydrogen amphibian on September 23.  Often considered as too heavy and bulky for light aircraft, hydrogen has been seen recently on commercial commuter craft, but rarely on puddle-jumpers available at your local airport. The outing by a Dornier DS-2C, described by Dornier as, “a two-seat amphibious, light sports aircraft manufactured from lightweight, carbon fiber materials. Light by design, but incorporating structural integrity for safety of flight. The aircraft can host up to two occupants and 100 liters of fuel, which secures your next adventure.” Normally powered by a Rotax 912iS Sport engine of 73.5 kilowatts (95.5 horsepower), the two-seat, 650 kilogram (1,430 pound) craft has a maximum cruise speed of 250 kilometers per hour (155 mph) and a stall speed of 73 kilometers per hour (45 mph). Its 9.18 meter span gives it a rate of climb of 3.2 meters per second (630 feet per minute) and the ability to …

Swiss Smartflyer – An Advanced Design

Dean Sigler Announcements, Batteries, Electric Aircraft Components, Electric Aircraft Materials, Electric Powerplants, Fuel Cells, GFC, Hybrid Aircraft, hydrogen, Hydrogen Fuel, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

The Swiss Smartflyer SF-1 is an advanced design showing links to the second-place finisher in the 2011 Green Flight Challenge. Launching an Airplane and an Event The creators of the Smartflyer were intent on developing a different kind of aircraft when they started in 2015.  Their hybrid aircraft had three different modes of power from the beginning: pure electric power from batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, and a Rotax engine driving a generator that powers the motor’s batteries. They’ve retained those three configurations to this day, obviously modifying or upgrading them as technology changed.  That’s part of the beauty of electric aircraft.  Motors, components and batteries keep improving, and are easy to add or change. In pure electric version, batteries fill nose, promise 2.5 hours of flight. The overall design is close to that of the original, with three replaceable power sources available for the long nose and a high-mounted propeller on the vertical tail.  That “look” came from Dipl-Ing. Rudolf …

APUS Rolls Out Its i-2

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A Grand Roll-Out APUS, the thirteen-year-old German aircraft firm specializing in design, maintenance, and repair, rolled out its i-2, a hydrogen-powered, twin electric motor craft filled with innovative ideas.  300 invited guests attended the sunny ceremony, presided over by Brandenburg’s Minister of Economic Affairs Prof. Dr. Jörg Steinbach, together with APUS CEO Phillip Scheffel. Scheffel spoke to the crowd, explaining how much his team contributed to the firm’s accomplishment.  “Without the great work and dedication of our team, this success would never have been possible. Together we have redefined the boundaries of modern aviation.” Your editor had the pleasure of interviewing Scheffel and his compatriots Laurent Altenberger and Dipl.-Ing. Robert Adam last year.  The discussion led to a blog entry as the group was beginning development of the i-2, and highlighted some of the boundaries Scheffel speaks of redefining. One boundary was the weight penalty traditionally imposed in using hydrogen as a fuel source.  Scheffel has an approach that addresses …

Joby Plus Hydrogen: 523 Miles

Dean Sigler Announcements, Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Hybrid Aircraft, hydrogen, Hydrogen Fuel, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Combine the Joby S4 pre-production prototype with H2 Fly’s expertise in providing clean energy, and watch world records fall. 2021 155-Mile Battery Flight Justin Paines, Joby’s Chief Test Pilot, guided the eVTOL through eleven circuits of a pre-designated route and managed 154.6 miles (248.8 km) in just 77 minutes. JoeBen Bevirt, Joby’s founder, noted his firm had, “achieved something that many thought impossible with today’s battery technology.”  Batteries have improved since then, but an alliance with a German hydrogen program makes even longer flights possible. 2024’s Hydrogen Odyssey In an even greater demonstration of its capabilities, an S4 powered by hydrogen managed a 523 mile, non-stop flight on June 24, 2024.  Powering around a circuit above Marina, California, the craft landed with 10 percent of its 40-kilogram (88 pound) hydrogen load still available. A collaboration between Joby and Germany’s H2-Fly uses much of the same system as H2-Fly’s Hy4 aircraft, a re-engineering of the G4 designed by Tine Tomažič, head …

ZeroAvia: 100 CRJ700 Motors to American

Dean Sigler Announcements, Electric Aircraft Components, Electric Powerplants, Fuel Cells, hydrogen, Hydrogen Fuel, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Your Jet May Become a Prop Plane Bombardier’s (Commuter Regional Jet) CRJ700 has been in service for over 21 years, and may be about to receive a power system that will make it one of the cleanest alternatives in air travel. According to electric-flight.eu, “American Airlines plans to convert most of its CRJ700 fleet to environmentally friendly engines,” particularly ZeroAvia’s ZA2000 RJ drive train, electrified by hydrogen fuel cells. American, a shareholder in ZeroAvia, operates a fleet of CRJ 700s through its American Eagle regional airline subsidiary.  Converting the airplanes from their current General Electric CF34-8C1 to hydrogen-fueled ZA2000s will extend the lives of the planes and make them the cleanest things in the sky. Robert Isom, CEO of American Airlines, said: “To accelerate the transition of commercial aviation to a low-carbon future, investments in promising technologies, including alternative forms of propulsion, are required.” Val Miftakhov, CEO and founder of ZeroAvia, added, “At this early stage in our work together, …

Hold Your Hydrogen – GTL Does

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GTL. Gloyer-Taylor Laboratories Inc, is a specialist composite manufacturer and it validates LH2 composite dewar tanks for use in aviation.  Recently, they shared that, “In-depth results from the successful validation testing of its small, subscale composite vacuum jacketed dewar tank with liquid hydrogen (LH2).” Think of a dewar as a large thermos bottle and you won’t be far from reality.  “A cryogenic storage dewar (or simply dewar) is a specialized type of vacuum flask used for storing cryogens (such as liquid nitrogen or liquid helium), whose boiling points are much lower than room temperature. It is named after inventor James Dewar, who developed it for his own work. They are commonly used in low-temperature physics and chemistry.” (Wikipedia) The company explained, “Test results exceeded expectations regarding holding hard vacuum, heat load, rapid chill-down and hydrogen fraction goal, leading to flight prototype fabrication. “ The company reports, “When fully isolated, the dewar tank held hard vacuum at 2.8.e-6 torr (5.414e-9 psi) for …

DLR’s EXACT Future Dreams

Dean Sigler Batteries, Biofuels, Diesel Powerplants, Electric Powerplants, hydrogen, Hydrogen Fuel, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

DLR, the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt) predicts practical ways to achieve dreams of carbon neutral flight.  EXACT (Exploration of Electric Aircraft Concepts and Technologies Projects is not an exact depiction of aircraft on the drawing board, but a conceptual program for creating the craft and infrastructure of future flight. The EXACT project is developing a concept for climate-friendly flying in commercial aviation and takes into account the complete life cycle of an aircraft, its components and its fuel.  DLR looks beyond the aircraft designs themselves to include sustainable energy sources, powerplant types, and even flight route planning. Goals and Approaches The plan cites the following goals and approaches: “New DLR aviation strategy charts the research path towards emission-free flying. “The energy requirements of upcoming aircraft must be reduced to at least half by 2050. “The climate-neutral aviation of the future requires highly efficient aircraft configurations and an intelligent mix of alternative drive concepts. “Climate-optimized flight …