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Bristow Group to work on development and certification of Electra.aero’s hybrid eSTOL aircraft, deal includes 50-strong order

Electra.aero will deliv­er up to 50 of its hybrid eSTOL air­craft to Bris­tow Group as part of a new part­ner­ship between the two com­pa­nies, which will them work togeth­er on its tech­ni­cal devel­op­ment and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. 

This will include devel­op­ing a full range of safe­ty and oper­a­tional fea­tures to ensure the new air­craft meets cus­tomer and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion require­ments — from the FAA, EASA and Trans­port Cana­da.

Addi­tion­al­ly, the com­pa­nies will explore new mar­kets for Bris­tow’s oper­a­tions when util­is­ing the Elec­tra eSTOL air­craft — with a focus on ‘mid­dle mile’ logis­tics for retail dis­tri­b­u­tion, expand­ing its ser­vice to exist­ing cus­tomer bases and spe­cialised pas­sen­ger ser­vices.

Chris Brad­shaw, Bris­tow Pres­i­dent and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer, said: “Just as Bris­tow pio­neered the ver­ti­cal trans­porta­tion mar­ket some 70+ years ago, this MOU sets the stage for ear­ly col­lab­o­ra­tion and devel­op­ment between Bris­tow and Elec­tra for a new class of air­craft that will allow us to take advan­tage of the unique capa­bil­i­ties of elec­tric and hybrid pow­er gen­er­a­tion tech­nolo­gies to sub­stan­tial­ly low­er car­bon emis­sions and oper­at­ing costs.

“This will allow us to expand our exper­tise pro­vid­ing sus­tain­able, inno­v­a­tive and effi­cient ver­ti­cal lift and aer­i­al trans­port solu­tions into new poten­tial end mar­kets like mov­ing time-sen­si­tive car­go and pas­sen­gers region­al­ly.”

Elec­tra’s eSTOL air­craft can oper­ate from run­ways as small as 300x100 feet using a pro­pri­etary proven blown lift tech­nol­o­gy where eight engines pro­vide addi­tion­al wing lift, and hybrid-elec­tric pow­er that pro­vides inter­nal recharg­ing capa­bil­i­ties for air­craft bat­ter­ies, elim­i­nat­ing the need for new ground infra­struc­ture. It is cur­rent­ly being designed to trans­port up to 1,800lbs of car­go or move five to sev­en pas­sen­gers about 400 to 500 miles. 

Elec­tra’s air­craft can oper­ate in a vari­ety of envi­ron­ments rang­ing from busy urban areas to remote land­ing strips, and fly mis­sions rang­ing from on-demand intracity flights to med­ical mis­sions, car­go trans­porta­tion and sched­uled pas­sen­ger ser­vices.

John S. Lang­ford, Founder and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of Electra.aero, added: “Bris­tow’s deep expe­ri­ence oper­at­ing air­craft across a vari­ety of mis­sions is an excel­lent com­ple­ment to the Elec­tra team’s exten­sive expe­ri­ence in design­ing and build­ing inno­v­a­tive air­craft. This col­lab­o­ra­tion will lead to a more rig­or­ous air­craft capa­ble of address­ing oper­a­tors’ needs across a vari­ety of use cas­es and will help Elec­tra devel­op and cer­ti­fy an eSTOL air­craft in as short a peri­od of time as pos­si­ble.

“As our prin­ci­pal launch oper­a­tional cus­tomer, Bris­tow will ben­e­fit from ear­ly access to Elec­tra’s air­craft, which will deliv­er more than twice the pay­load, fly longer ranges, and have sub­stan­tial­ly low­er oper­at­ing costs than ver­ti­cal take-off alter­na­tives — with much less cer­ti­fi­ca­tion risk.

Today, Bris­tow oper­ates a fleet of approx­i­mate­ly 240 of the indus­try’s most mod­ern air­craft for air mobil­i­ty trans­port uses includ­ing oil and gas cus­tomers, search and res­cue (SAR), and gov­ern­ment and civ­il organ­i­sa­tions, with annu­al rev­enues of more than $1.2 bil­lion.

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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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