H2FLY and Air Liquide tests hydrogen-electric aircraft storage

H2FLY and project part­ner Air Liq­uide have suc­cess­ful­ly test­ed an air­craft-inte­grat­ed liq­uid hydro­gen stor­age sys­tem dur­ing on-ground cou­pling tests, with its HY4 air­craft, com­plet­ed in prepa­ra­tion for H2FLY’s upcom­ing flight test cam­paign.

This achieve­ment is part of the Euro­pean project HEAVEN, a con­sor­tium of six com­pa­nies demon­strat­ing the fea­si­bil­i­ty of using liq­uid cryo­genic hydro­gen in air­craft, led by H2FLY.

The new liq­uid hydro­gen stor­age sys­tem, which is designed and sup­plied by Air Liq­uide based on H2FLY’s require­ments, has been suc­cess­ful­ly cou­pled with the fuel cell sys­tem on ground.

This part­ner­ship rep­re­sents the final tech­no­log­i­cal build­ing block in the devel­op­ment of a com­plete hydro­gen-elec­tric pow­er­train using liq­uid hydro­gen to pow­er the HY4, H2FLY’s four-seater demon­stra­tor air­craft which runs on hydro­gen and fuel cells.

The com­pa­ny led the test cam­paign on Air Liquide’s Cam­pus Tech­nolo­gies Greno­ble to mark an upcom­ing ground and flight test cam­paign this sum­mer, when the HY4 is expect­ed to be the first pas­sen­ger air­craft to fly with liq­uid hydro­gen and fuel cells.

H2FLY is the first com­pa­ny to suc­cess­ful­ly per­form on-ground cou­pling tests with an air­craft-inte­grat­ed liq­uid hydro­gen tank and fuel cell sys­tem, pro­vid­ing pio­neer­ing tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ments for Euro­pean Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (EASA) CS-23 and CS-25 air­craft reg­u­la­tions for cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

Pro­fes­sor Josef Kallo, co-founder and CEO of H2FLY said: “With the suc­cess­ful pass­ing of the on-ground cou­pling tests, we have learnt that it will be pos­si­ble to scale up our tech­nol­o­gy for a 40-seater air­craft.”

This fol­lows the company’s announce­ment last month that it passed its first fill­ing tests with the inte­grat­ed liq­uid hydro­gen tank. Key mile­stones include:
1) In 2020 H2FLY was grant­ed a per­mit to fly the HY4 air­craft, which fea­tured a ful­ly redun­dant pow­er­train archi­tec­ture.
2) In 2021 the com­pa­ny signed a part­ner­ship with air­craft man­u­fac­tur­er Deutsche Air­craft to fly a CS25 class air­craft pow­ered by H2FLY’s hydro­gen fuel cell tech­nol­o­gy, expect­ed to fly in 2025.
3) Ear­li­er last year, the com­pa­ny com­plet­ed a cross-coun­try flight in Ger­many from Stuttgart to Friedrichshafen, cov­er­ing 77 miles.
4) Also last year, the com­pa­ny set what is believed to be a world alti­tude record for a hydro­gen air­craft, fly­ing at 7,230 feet.