Heart Aerospace: News in Abundance “as Company’s ES-30 Hybrid-Electric Aircraft Development Accelerates” 

Swe­den-based Heart Aero­space rolled out four dif­fer­ent press releas­es last week, a sign the company’s devel­op­ment of its ES-30 Hybrid-Elec­tric Air­craft is accel­er­at­ing.

First off, is news that Heart has unveiled its first full-scale ES-30 demon­stra­tor. The release states, “With a com­mand­ing 32-meter wingspan, the demon­stra­tor, named Heart Exper­i­men­tal 1 (Heart X1), will serve as a plat­form for rig­or­ous test­ing and devel­op­ment of Heart’s ES-30 air­craft.”

It con­tin­ues, “Ini­tial­ly, the HX‑1 will be used for ground-based test­ing, focus­ing on charg­ing oper­a­tions, taxi­ing, and turn­around pro­ce­dures. It is sched­uled to under­take a ful­ly elec­tric first flight in the sec­ond quar­ter of 2025. In prepa­ra­tion for this flight, Heart will over the com­ing months, test crit­i­cal sys­tems by run­ning hard­ware tests both on and off the air­plane.”

Anders Forslund, co-Founder and CEO, com­ment­ed, “It is a tes­ta­ment to the inge­nu­ity and ded­i­ca­tion of our team that we’re able to roll out a 30-seat air­craft demon­stra­tor with a brand-new propul­sion sys­tem, large­ly in-house, in less than two years. “

Devel­op­ment of the Heart X1 has been fund­ed in part by grants pro­vid­ed by the Swedish Inno­va­tion Agency, Vin­no­va, high­light­ing the essen­tial col­lab­o­ra­tion between gov­ern­ment and indus­try that is need­ed to bring new avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies to mar­ket.

Heart’s next step in devel­op­ing the ES-30 is the build­ing of a pre-pro­duc­tion pro­to­type, the Heart X2, which will fur­ther mature the design and pro­duc­tion meth­ods based on lessons learned from the Heart X1.

ES-30 Cock­pit

This is sched­uled for a hybrid-elec­tric flight in 2026 and will demon­strate the company’s Inde­pen­dent Hybrid propul­sion sys­tem. In August, Heart was select­ed for a USD4.1 mil­lion grant by the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Administration’s (FAA) Fuelling Aviation’s Sus­tain­able Tran­si­tion (FAST) pro­gram to devel­op the man­age­ment sys­tem for the hybrid-elec­tric propul­sion.

Next news is that the com­pa­ny has com­plet­ed Ground Sup­port Pro­ce­dure Tests for elec­tric air­craft in col­lab­o­ra­tion with air­lines Braa­thens Region­al Air­lines, SAS, and air­port oper­a­tor Swe­davia.

These tri­als were con­duct­ed as part of the Swedish research project ELISE, which brings togeth­er tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies with air­lines and air­ports to fos­ter the devel­op­ment of elec­tric avi­a­tion infra­struc­ture in Swe­den. 

Simon Rein­berth, Air­port Infra­struc­ture Man­ag­er at Heart Aero­space, remarked, “Com­mer­cial cus­tomers are eager to reduce oper­a­tional costs and decar­bonise their fleets, but they face a set of com­plex chal­lenges, such as which plug stan­dard to install and how to bring megawatts of pow­er to remote facil­i­ties. We are work­ing close­ly with indus­try advi­sors through the ELISE project to ensure we meet these spe­cif­ic needs. By col­lab­o­rat­ing with experts, we aim to cre­ate an infra­struc­ture tai­lored for elec­tric air­craft and the air­port.”

Swe­den has a trans­port infra­struc­ture that depends on air trav­el and the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of these ground test­ing pro­ce­dures brings the vision of eco-friend­ly air trav­el in the coun­try clos­er to real­i­ty.

Mean­while, AirA­sia, Malaysia’s fourth largest air­line in Asia, has joined Heart Aerospace’s Indus­try Advi­so­ry Board to help shape the future of region­al elec­tric avi­a­tion. As a mem­ber, AirA­sia will pro­vide guid­ance and over­sight on the design, devel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of the ES-30.

The Board con­sists of lead­ing air­lines, leas­ing com­pa­nies and air­ports world­wide, each rep­re­sent­ing crit­i­cal com­po­nents of the avi­a­tion ecosys­tem nec­es­sary to sup­port the trans­for­ma­tive shift toward elec­tric air trav­el.

Cap­tain Chester Voo, Deputy CEO (Air­line Oper­a­tions) at AirA­sia Avi­a­tion Group, remarked, “We are com­mit­ted to explor­ing new tech­nolo­gies that align with our focus on oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy and sus­tain­abil­i­ty. While elec­tric and hybrid-elec­tric air­craft are still nascent in Asia, they rep­re­sent a com­pelling future for sus­tain­able air trav­el. We look for­ward to con­tribut­ing our avi­a­tion expe­ri­ence and insights from this dynam­ic region to Heart Aerospace’s pio­neer­ing work.”

Final­ly, Heart has filed two EU design appli­ca­tions and one patent for an inno­v­a­tive Nacelle Inte­gra­tion Design, which is to improve flight char­ac­ter­is­tics of the ES-30 and allow it to oper­ate on short­er run­ways.

The release states, “In con­trast to the most wide­spread designs, that locate the nacelle under the wing, Heart’s solu­tion is cen­tred on the wing and designed for a vor­tex gen­er­a­tion at a high angle of attack (the angle between the wing and the oncom­ing air­flow), pre­vent­ing the nacelle from sig­nif­i­cant­ly dete­ri­o­rat­ing the wing’s per­for­mance.”

Anders Forslund, co-Founder and CEO of Heart Aero­space, said, “This inno­va­tion reflects Heart’s strat­e­gy to simul­ta­ne­ous­ly devel­op both the aircraft’s design and the pro­duc­tion process, ensur­ing rapid inno­va­tion and abil­i­ty to adapt to changes.”  

Seat­ing Inte­ri­or

The release con­tin­ues, “The inter­ac­tion between a wing and a nacelle — the engine hous­ing mount­ed on the wing — plays a cru­cial role in deter­min­ing an aircraft’s aero­dy­nam­ic per­for­mance. At high angles of attack, tra­di­tion­al nacelle designs can cause air­flow sep­a­ra­tion, lead­ing to stall and a rapid loss of lift.

“Heart’s design min­imis­es the aero­dy­nam­ic inter­fer­ence between the nacelle and wing, allow­ing for a high­er angle of attack and delay­ing stall. This improves lift gen­er­a­tion dur­ing both cruise and land­ing phas­es, giv­ing the ES-30 the abil­i­ty to fly at low­er speeds with greater aero­dy­nam­ic effi­cien­cy.”

Heart is devel­op­ing the ES-30, a region­al hybrid-elec­tric air­plane with a stan­dard seat­ing capac­i­ty of 30 pas­sen­gers, which promis­es to deliv­er “unpar­al­leled sus­tain­abil­i­ty and effi­cien­cy on short-haul routes” with an elec­tric zero-emis­sion range of 200 km and an extend­ed hybrid range of 400 km.

For more infor­ma­tion

http://www.heartaerospace.com/

(Images: Heart Aero­space)

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