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Production work begins on building Bye Aerospace’s all-electric eFlyer 2 aircraft

Bye Aero­space has con­firmed that pro­duc­tion has now start­ed on Ser­i­al #001 of its two-seat all-elec­tric eFly­er 2 air­craft, with the com­pa­ny also in the process of obtain­ing FAA Part-23 cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for pro­fes­sion­al flight train­ing mis­sions.

George E. Bye, CEO of Bye Aero­space, has said the com­pa­ny has con­tract­ed Com­pos­ites Uni­ver­sal Group (CUG) to begin assem­bly of the pro­duc­tion eFly­er 2 fuse­lage, the first major com­po­nent being assem­bled.

This agree­ment fol­lows on from the agree­ment Bye Aero­space signed with Safran Engine and Pow­er, which will equip its eFly­er 2 and eFly­er 4 air­craft with Safran’s ENGINeUSTM 100 elec­tric smart motor. Addi­tion­al­ly, Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Resources will sup­ply whole air­craft recov­ery para­chutes sys­tems for the e‑Flyer2.

Com­ment­ing on the agree­ment with CUG, Bye said: “We con­tin­ue to make advances in the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process. “These activ­i­ties com­mence pro­duc­tion of the first con­form­ing eFly­er 2, the first of three planned con­form­ing eFly­er 2 air­craft that will be used to help com­plete final FAA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. We look for­ward to work­ing with Steve Ruege and the team at CUG.”

Steve Ruege, CEO of CUG, added: “Com­pos­ites Uni­ver­sal Group is extreme­ly proud to have been select­ed by George and the team at Bye Aero­space to begin tool­ing and con­struc­tion for the all-car­bon fiber fuse­lage for Ser­i­al #001 of the eFly­er 2 air­craft.

“We all feel here at CUG that Bye Aero­space has absolute­ly hit a home run with this next-gen­er­a­tion all-elec­tric air­craft design. We are very excit­ed about work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly with the Bye Aero­space team to achieve FAA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and com­menc­ing pro­duc­tion.”

Bye Aero­space is FAA-cer­ti­fy­ing the two-seat, all-elec­tric eFly­er 2 for the pro­fes­sion­al flight train­ing mis­sion, while the four-seat eFly­er 4 will be for air taxi and advanced train­ing uses.

The company’s eFlyer2 demon­stra­tor entered the next stage of flight test­ing last year, which focused on col­lect­ing flight enve­lope engi­neer­ing data for the three pro­pellers being con­sid­ered for the FAA-cer­ti­fied pro­duc­tion ver­sion.

Quan­tumXYZ signed a pur­chase deposit agree­ment for 22 four-seat eFly­ers and two two-seat eFly­ers in August 2019, which are labelled under the eCTOL (elec­tric con­ven­tion­al take­off and land­ing) cat­e­go­ry. They will be used to link pas­sen­gers trav­el­ling between LAX and oth­er air­ports in the city.

Ben­e­fits of the eFly­er fam­i­ly of air­craft include five-fold low­er oper­at­ing costs, no CO2 emis­sions, and decreased noise. Bye Aero­space added that it esti­mates the eFly­er will even­tu­al­ly elim­i­nate the release of mil­lions of met­ric tons of CO2 each year as deliv­er­ies begin and the gen­er­al avi­a­tion fleet is replaced.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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