Stephen Bridgewater made a quick announcement on ZeroAvia’s Twitter feed Thursday January 19 about a Dornier 228 that flew with a hydrogen-powered motor on its left wing. ZeroAvia continues making the largest-yet H2 flights. ZeroAvia’s 19-seat Do228 flew today (from Kemble) at 13.35 UK time. It’s the largest hydrogen-electric powered aircraft yet to fly (hydrogen-electric engine on left wing and Honeywell TPE-331 on the right). This comes a year after the firm started modifications to the twin-engine Dornier aircraft in both England and California, and a little over two years since it flew a Piper Malibu first on batteries, and then hydrogen. Despite a crash landing that ended the Cranfield, England-based Malibu, ZeroAvia has stuck to its ambitious schedule. Another Piper Malibu continued testing at Hollister, California, part of the company’s efforts toward achieving both English and American certification. Performing engine tests early last years and following up with taxi tests at increasing speeds, ZeroAvia made a 10-minute airport circuit …
ZeroAvia Tests 600 kW Motor, Receives Honors
Val Miftakhov, founder and CEO of ZeroAvia, introduces tests of the company’s 600 kilowatt powertrain, mounted high atop their new mobile test bed. In recent months, the company has achieved some solid recognition. “In July, 2021, ZeroAvia has successfully tested high-power operation of its flight-intent ZA-600 (600kW) powertrain. The testing has been done on the brand new HyperTruck mobile ground testing platform ZeroAvia has developed based on a heavy-duty M977 HEMTT military truck. The HyperTruck platform is designed to be able to test not only the current 600 kilowatt system for 10-20 seat applications, but also the 2 Megawatt system currently in design phase, targeting 50-80 seat aircraft. The latest series of tests signifies a critical milestone before flight application of these powerplants later this year in the company’s 19-seat test demonstrator.” Further down the line, plans for a 40-80 seat hydrogen-electric aircraft are in store. Perhaps the high mounting of the powerplant comes from Head of Drivetrain development, Gabriel …