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FIA2024: JEKTA, ZeroAvia “to Collaborate on Hydrogen-Electric Amphibious Aircraft”

JEKTA, the Swiss-based devel­op­er of the PHA-ZE 100 amphibi­ous air­craft, has announced “it has select­ed ZeroAvia’s fuel cell pow­er gen­er­a­tion sys­tem (PGS) tech­nol­o­gy to demon­strate the con­cept of a fuel cell vari­ant of its elec­tric amphibi­ous fly­ing boat design, with a view to line-fit of the sys­tem as the PHA-ZE 100 vari­ant comes to mar­ket,” reports a press release.

JEKTA is com­mit­ted to explor­ing all poten­tial options that may increase the range and pay­load of its zero-emis­sions air­craft. Pow­ered by ZeroAvia’s fuel cell PGS, it is antic­i­pat­ed the PHA-ZE 100 will achieve a range of up to 600km and increase the pay­load to one tonne, adding more capa­bil­i­ty to the air­frame.

The release con­tin­ues, “Oper­at­ing and main­te­nance costs can also be low­ered with a hydro­gen fuel sys­tem sup­port­ing a life of up to 20,000 hours. Through close coop­er­a­tion, JEKTA and ZeroAvia will devel­op and cer­ti­fy an inte­grat­ed PGS, includ­ing invert­ers, oth­er elec­tron­ic com­po­nents, and a hydro­gen tank and fuel sys­tem.”

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George Alafi­nov, CEO of JEKTA Switzer­land, com­ment­ed, “The hydro­gen sys­tem deliv­ers a viable alter­na­tive to elec­tric bat­tery pow­er. It promis­es a sig­nif­i­cant increase in the range of our PHA-ZE 100, which will suit oper­a­tors serv­ing longer region­al routes.” He con­tin­ued, “The bat­tery pow­er option suit short­er-range mis­sions and oper­a­tors fly­ing in loca­tions where elec­tric pow­er is more cost-effec­tive and acces­si­ble.”

The release goes on, “ZeroAvia is already fly­ing a pro­to­type of its entire hydro­gen-elec­tric pow­er­train (ZA600) in a 19-seat test­bed air­craft. It has devel­oped a range of flex­i­ble low-tem­per­a­ture pro­ton exchange mem­brane (LTPEM) PGS solu­tions and nov­el high-tem­per­a­ture PEM (HTPEM) fuel cells for hydro­gen-elec­tric aero­space appli­ca­tions.”

Val Mif­takhov, CEO at ZeroAvia, remarked, “We are not­ing a resur­gence in the sea­plane mar­ket, and we’re excit­ed to work with an inno­v­a­tive com­pa­ny that is lead­ing and shap­ing the future of amphibi­ous avi­a­tion. We see the huge poten­tial for cre­at­ing zero-emis­sion amphibi­ous flights, and we believe hydro­gen-elec­tric propul­sion will play a big role in this mar­ket.”

ZeroAvia is also involved in glob­al hydro­gen infra­struc­ture projects and has col­lab­o­ra­tions with close to 20 air­ports to explore the con­cept of oper­a­tions and the hydro­gen refu­elling ecosys­tem required to sup­port route adop­tion. The com­pa­ny has also pio­neered the test­ing of elec­trol­y­sers for on-site hydro­gen gen­er­a­tion, hydro­gen pipeline tech­nol­o­gy and air­craft refu­elling equip­ment in an air­port envi­ron­ment.

Alafi­nov sees these as essen­tial com­po­nents sup­port­ing an effi­cient region­al amphibi­ous avi­a­tion net­work and plans to work close­ly with ZeroAvia on both an opti­mised instal­la­tion of their PGS in the PHA-ZE 100, and in explor­ing the infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment with oper­a­tor cus­tomers.

George Alafi­nov

Mean­while, the elec­tri­cal­ly pow­ered, all-com­pos­ite PHA-ZE 100 amphibi­ous air­frame is to be cer­ti­fied to EASA CS-23 and U.S FAA FAR-23 stan­dards for fixed-wing pas­sen­ger air­craft. 

The PHA-ZE 100’s ini­tial flight endurance on bat­tery pow­er is pro­ject­ed at one hour, with a 30-minute reserve, pow­ered by elec­tric motors sup­plied with ener­gy from bat­ter­ies or hydro­gen fuel cells. The PHA-ZE 100 will oper­ate from coastal waters in waves up to 1.2m high, lakes, water­ways, and run­ways with the lat­ter using its stan­dard retractable wheeled land­ing gear.

(JEKTA is exhibit­ing at Farn­bor­ough Air­show in the Swiss Pavil­lion, Hall 4, Booth N4517: ZeroAvia is at Hall 1, Stand 1111) 

For more infor­ma­tion

www.Jekta.Swiss

ZeroAvia.com

(Top graph­ic image: JEKTA PHA-ZE 100 amphibi­ous air­craft)

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