July/August 2019

n TRANSPORTATION built for roles such as general aviation, light business travel and regional transport. These planes will cost about 20% less to operate than existing 50-70-seater aircraft. UBS perdicts that HE planes of this size will open up new business models and shake up the market. The bank believes that the shift to HE aircraft could happen sooner than some experts predict, with hybrid cargo and passenger aircraft capable of carrying up to nine passengers over distances of up to 400km becoming available from 2022, and regional craft capable of flying for up to an hour reaching the market from 2028. Halving maintenance costs A front-runner among HE developers is the Los Angeles based manufacturer Ampaire, which has already started flight-testing of its first commercial product, a twin-engined Cessna 337 Skymaster modified to fly with one combustion engine paired with a 160kW electric motor. It has already made flights lasting more than an hour. Ampaire claims that its Electric Eel HE aircraft, which can seat up to six people, will have a comparable purchase price to a conventional aircraft, but its fuel and maintenance costs will be half as much. Ampaire’s plane is due to enter trials on commercial routes in Hawaii with Moulele Airlines later this year, with commercial service slated for 2021. Ampaire says that it has already had more than a dozen letters of interest in its aircraft from regional and charter airlines. Also working on hybrid electric aircraft is a British firm, Faradair, which hopes to certify an 18-seat (or five tonnes of freight) HE plane for passenger operation by 2025. Its Beha (bio- electric hybrid aircraft) craft will be able to take off quietly using less than 300m of runway, and to travel from London to Manchester in 42 minutes with a cruising speed of 370km/h. Founder and managing director Neil Cloughley believes that the aircraft could offer return flights between London and Manchester for £50. The plane could also be Attracting a supporting cast Suppliers are springing up to offer components and services to support the development of electric aircraft. For example, earlier this year, Collins Aerospace, part of United Aerospace, announced plans for a $50m high-power, high- voltage laboratory to design and test systems for “more-electric” aircraft. Collins promises that the 2,320m 2 lab, being built in Illinois and known as The Grid, will be “the industry’s most advanced electric power systems lab”when it starts operating in 2021. The lab (depicted above) is part of a $150m investment that Collins Aerospace is planning to make in electric systems over the coming three years, and builds on $3bn that it has already spent on advancing more-electric architectures over the past decade. One of The Grid’s first projects will involve “re-engining” a regional turboprop plane with a 2MW hybrid- electric propulsion system. This work will include developing a 1MW motor, controller and battery system which Collins predicts will be the aerospace industry’s most power-dense and efficient to date. In Europe, Airbus is building a 4,500m 2 facility in Germany to test electrical systems, batteries, power generation and distribution systems, and gas turbines. The E-Aircraft Systems Test House will be capable of testing electrical propulsion systems up to 20MW – equivalent to the power of a single A320 engine. A key component in any electric aircraft is, of course, the propulsion motor and several organisations around the world are focusing on this aspect of the technology. Until recently, one of the leaders was Siemens but in June it announced that it was selling its eAircraft operation to Rolls-Royce for an undisclosed sum. Rolls plans to use the acquisition – and its 180 personnel – to accelerate its electrification strategy, with the aim of becoming the leading supplier of all-electric and hybrid-electric propulsion systems for aircraft. Another leading motor developer is the US company Magnix (whose origins were in Australia, where it still has a base). Magnix is developing a pair of high power-to-weight ratio brushless motors (and matching electronics), rated at 280kW and 560kW. The motors are designed to spin at 1,900 rpm (maximum 3,000 rpm) and can thus drive propellers directly, avoiding the weight, size and maintenance requirements of gearboxes. The 280kW motor will weigh 72kg, operate with an efficiency of at least 93% and deliver a continuous torque of more than 1.4kNm. The 560kW motor will weigh 135kg, have a similar efficiency and deliver more than 2.8kNm. Seattle-based Magnix is supplying the motors for Eviation’s Alice aircraft. A Canadian airline called Harbour Air, which specialises in seaplane flights lasting 15-25 minutes, is also planning to retrofit Magnix motors to its existing fleet of 40 engine-driven aircraft. Magnix CEO Roei Ganzarski expects such retrofits to be a major part of his company’s business. Last year, he points out, 5% of all global flights (a total of 1.8 million trips) covered distances of less than 160km. Converting an existing engine-driven aircraft to electric power will cost about a fifth of buying a new aircraft, he adds, as well as being cheaper to operate. Also developing new motors specifically for aircraft is the Brazilian motor-maker WEG, which recently announced a tie-up with the local aircraft-builder Embraer to develop new technologies for electrical aircraft propulsion. 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