Diamond’s eDA40 and its Electric Ambitions

Dean Sigler Batteries, Diesel Powerplants, Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

Austria’s Diamond Aircraft launched its eDA40 last year, headed toward becoming “The first EASA/FAA (European Aviation Safety Agency/Federal Aviation Agency) Part 23 certified electric airplane with DC fast charging. Electric Power Systems’ DC fast charging system is capable of turning around a depleted aircraft in under 20 minutes.” Austria’s Diamond Aircraft has been developing environmentally responsible aircraft for the last several decades, starting with the hydrogen fuel cell-powered HK-36 in 2008.  Diamond promoted its work with Boeing Phantom Works as emitting nothing more than waste heat and water vapor, demonstrating “technology that may result in cleaner APU’s (auxiliary Power Units) for commercial aircraft of the future.” Diamond went beyond that over the next decade, using the HK-36 as a testbed for various hybrid and electric power variants.  In 2018, things had evolved to the HEMEP (Hybrid Electric Multi Engine Flying), a serial hybrid with two Siemens (now Rolls-Royce) motors on nose-mounted stalks powered by an internal combustion engine in the …