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VoltAero joins Power Up initiative to introduce European electric regional air mobility

VoltAero will par­tic­i­pate in test flights in the Nether­lands to help define oper­a­tional pro­ce­dures and pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence with elec­tric air­craft in inter-region­al air trans­porta­tion as part of the 18 part­ner Pow­er Up group, which aims to facil­i­tate the intro­duc­tion of elec­tric region­al air mobil­i­ty in Europe.

Oth­er avi­a­tion and mobil­i­ty organ­i­sa­tions join­ing Pow­er Up include Eind­hoven Air­port, Gronin­gen Air­port Eelde, Lelystad Air­port, Maas­tricht Aachen Air­port, and Rot­ter­dam The Hague Air­port, as well as with KLM Roy­al Dutch Air­lines, the Dutch Rail­ways, the Nether­lands Aero­space Cen­tre and sev­er­al con­sul­tan­cies.

“The Pow­er Up ini­tia­tive is an excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ty to show how Cas­sio and oth­er e‑airplanes offer the solu­tion to intro­duc­ing a new era of effi­cient air mobil­i­ty with low-car­bon emis­sions and reduced noise,” said Jean Bot­ti, VoltAero’s CEO and Chief Tech­nol­o­gy Offi­cer.

VoltAero’s Cas­sio air­craft is designed for region­al com­mer­cial oper­a­tors, air taxi/charter com­pa­nies and pri­vate own­ers, as well as in util­i­ty-cat­e­go­ry ser­vice for car­go, postal deliv­ery and med­ical evac­u­a­tion (Mede­vac) appli­ca­tions.

By inte­grat­ing VoltAero’s patent­ed elec­tric-hybrid propul­sion sys­tem into the company’s pur­pose-designed air­frame, Cas­sio will deliv­er an order of mag­ni­tude high­er per­for­mance as com­pared to the cur­rent com­pe­ti­tion, and pro­vide sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er oper­a­tional costs.

The VoltAero propul­sion con­cept utilis­es an elec­tric motor in the aft fuse­lage-mount­ed hybrid propul­sion unit for all-elec­tric pow­er dur­ing taxi, take­off, pri­ma­ry flight if the dis­tance trav­elled is less than 150 km, and land­ing.

The hybrid inter­nal com­bus­tion engine comes into play as a range exten­der, recharg­ing the bat­ter­ies while in flight. Addi­tion­al­ly, it serves as a back­up in the event of a prob­lem with the elec­tric propul­sion, ensur­ing true fail-safe func­tion­al­i­ty.

VoltAero’s first pro­duc­tion air­craft ver­sion will be the Cas­sio 330, with a four/­five-seat inte­ri­or con­fig­u­ra­tion and oper­at­ing on a com­bined elec­tric-hybrid propul­sion pow­er of 330 kilo­watts.

It is to be fol­lowed by the six-seat Cas­sio 480 with a com­bined elec­tric-hybrid propul­sion pow­er of 480 kilo­watts, and the Cas­sio 600 – sized at a 10/12-seat capac­i­ty with elec­tric-hybrid propul­sion pow­er of 600 kilo­watts.

Ear­li­er this month, VoltAero marked anoth­er impor­tant step toward the full-scale pro­duc­tion of its Cas­sio elec­tric-hybrid air­craft fam­i­ly with ground­break­ing for a final assem­bly line at Rochefort Air­port in the Char­ente-Mar­itime depart­ment of France’s Nou­velle-Aquitaine region.

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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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