VoltAero Selects Safran electrical wiring to equip Cassio 330 electric-hybrid certification aircraft

Safran Elec­tri­cal & Pow­er (SEP) has been cho­sen to sup­ply the elec­tri­cal wiring on VoltAero’s Cas­sio 330 elec­tric-hybrid cer­ti­fi­ca­tion air­craft, reports a press release. This con­firms Safran’s role as a lead­ing part­ner in VoltAero’s clean-sheet e‑airplane.

SEP is to design and pro­duce elec­tri­cal wiring for the propul­sion sys­tem and pow­er dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem, in par­tic­u­lar, the high-volt­age wiring on the Cas­sio 330 to be used in the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram of its first mem­ber of VoltAero’s air­craft fam­i­ly. 

The release states, “The wiring will be qual­i­fied for pow­er rat­ings up to 800 volts in con­tin­u­ous oper­a­tion and is to be designed to resist par­tial dis­charge phe­nom­e­na at alti­tude. At the equiv­a­lent size of cabling pro­duced today for tra­di­tion­al air­craft, the Cas­sio wiring will car­ry pow­er lev­els twice as high.” 

SEP is to pro­vide the tech­ni­cal exper­tise to sup­port VoltAero in obtain­ing the SOF (Safe­ty of Flight) val­i­da­tion, a pre­req­ui­site for car­ry­ing out the Cas­sio 330’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion flight tests. 

The con­tract extends a col­lab­o­ra­tion first signed in 2020 involv­ing the Cas­sio 330’s elec­tric-hybrid propul­sion sys­tem. SEP “is to sup­ply the propul­sion system’s ENGINeUS 100 elec­tric motor, which deliv­ers a max­i­mum pow­er of more than 150 kW at take­off, “ explains the release. “The ENGINeUS 100 inte­grates its own con­trol elec­tron­ics as well as an air-cool­ing sys­tem, ensur­ing an opti­mal size-to-pow­er ratio.”

 Jean Bot­ti, VoltAero’s CEO and CTO, remarked, “The elec­tri­cal wiring is a crit­i­cal ele­ment of our Cas­sio air­craft and we’ve select­ed Safran Elec­tri­cal & Pow­er based on the company’s exper­tise, par­tic­u­lar­ly at high pow­er lev­els.” Adding, “This marks anoth­er impor­tant step toward the Cas­sio 330’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and ser­vice entry.” 

Serge Pons, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er & Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent of the Inter­con­nec­tion Sys­tems Eura­sia divi­sion of SEP, added, “Safran Elec­tri­cal & Pow­er’s exper­tise is the result of many years of invest­ment in research and devel­op­ment on high-pow­er tech­nol­o­gy. Today, thanks to our tech­no­log­i­cal build­ing blocks for hybrid and 100% elec­tric air­craft, we are active­ly con­tribut­ing to the decar­bon­i­sa­tion of avi­a­tion.”

The Cas­sio fam­i­ly “will be a high­ly capa­ble and reli­able prod­uct line for region­al com­mer­cial oper­a­tors, air taxi/charter com­pa­nies, pri­vate own­ers, as well as in util­i­ty-cat­e­go­ry ser­vice for car­go, postal deliv­ery and med­ical evac­u­a­tion (Mede­vac) appli­ca­tions,” con­tin­ues the release. 

Cas­sio will be pro­duced in three ver­sions:- 

: The five-seat Cas­sio 330.

: The Cas­sio 480 with six seats. 

: The 10–12 seat Cas­sio 600. 

Jean Bot­ti

Mean­while, the VoltAero propul­sion con­cept is unique. Cas­sio air­craft will utilise the ENGINeUS 100 elec­tric motor in the aft fuse­lage-mount­ed hybrid propul­sion unit for all-elec­tric pow­er dur­ing taxi, take­off, pri­ma­ry flight (if the dis­tance trav­eled is less than 150 km.) and land­ing. 

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

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.voltaero.aero/en/

https://www.safran-group.com/companies/safran-electrical-power

(Images: VoltAero)