“Fourteen UK Airfields Now Pioneering Electric Aviation”

The UK present­ly boasts 14 air­fields that embrace elec­tric-pow­ered air­craft, reports a press release. This includes Fairoaks Air­port in Chob­ham, Sur­rey which has become the lat­est to receive a Pip­istrel Velis (by Tex­tron eAv­i­a­tion), the only elec­tric air­craft to date cer­ti­fi­ied for pas­sen­ger flight by the CAA.

The leased craft has joined Syn­er­gy Flight Train­ing from UK Dis­trib­u­tor NEBOair. It is oper­at­ing in col­lab­o­ra­tion with sus­tain­abil­i­ty solu­tions pio­neer 4AIR, a Flex­jet sis­ter com­pa­ny and BBGA mem­ber.

Syn­er­gy Flight Train­ing (SFT) and 4AIR are col­lab­o­rat­ing to bring a new era of decar­bonised fly­ing, enabling future pilots to be trained on ful­ly elec­tric air­craft in the South of Eng­land, mir­ror­ing oper­a­tions at Sax­on­Air Avi­a­tion Train­ing at Nor­wich Air­port.

Oth­er ‘green air­fields’ include Dux­ford Air­port (home of the British clean-tech inno­va­tor Faradair); Great Oak­ley; Hum­ber­side (home of East­ern Air­ways); Old Buck­en­ham and Popham Aero­dromes; RAF Cran­well; Red­hill Aero­drome; Rochester Air­port, Sib­son, Ship­mead­ow and Wick­en­by Aero­dromes, all hav­ing res­i­dent Pip­istrel Velis Elec­tro air­craft with charg­ing sup­port­ed by NEBOair. 

Fairoaks Air­port, Chob­ham, Sur­rey

The release explains, “Sup­port­ing the all-impor­tant infra­struc­ture need­ed for the first all-elec­tric air­craft, Lon­don-based Aero­volt, spe­cial­ists in smart charg­ing for elec­tric air­craft, have deployed or are in the throes of deploy­ing, charg­ing points at 36 UK air­fields and air­ports.”

It con­tin­ues, “Lydd, Shore­ham, Hen­stridge, Dunkeswell, Sandown, Bournemouth and Snow­do­nia Aero­space Cen­tre will be joined by Good­wood, Thrux­ton and Black­bushe Air­ports in the next few months. Oth­ers com­mit­ting to instal­la­tions include Bal­a­do, Dean­land Air­field; Der­by; Isle of Man Ronaldsway; Kit­ty­hawk; Lee-on-Solent; North Moor; Shob­don; Taten­hill and Teesside Air­ports.” 

Kennedy Ric­ci, Pres­i­dent of 4AIR, com­ment­ed, “The Pip­istrel Velis gen­er­ates emis­sions only dur­ing its con­struc­tion, repair and main­te­nance, as well as from its even­tu­al end-of-life dis­pos­al and the elec­tric­i­ty used for charg­ing.”

He con­tin­ued, “Through our part­ner­ship with Syn­er­gy Flight Train­ing, stu­dent pilots of the future (and qual­i­fied pilots too) will expe­ri­ence new forms of decar­bonised fly­ing which will become more com­mon­place over the next decade.”

SFT is now active­ly recruit­ing fly­ing instruc­tors to fly the Velis at Fairoaks Air­port and is offer­ing instruc­tor spon­sor­ships for com­mer­cial­ly rat­ed pilots. Nor­wich Air­port-based Sax­on­Air took on a lease of the Velis, also from NEBOair last Octo­ber, to gain expe­ri­ence and test its via­bil­i­ty for a future elec­tric fleet.   Sax­on­Air oper­at­ed near­ly 150 hours train­ing in the Pip­istrels over the sum­mer with 30 hours in the Velis.

Sax­on­Air CEO and Deputy Chair of BBGA, Alex Durand, remarked, “You can advance train­ing with the Pip­istrel Velis Elec­tro and we are see­ing that peo­ple who are inter­est­ed in fly­ing, but haven’t learned, are enthu­si­as­tic to fly an elec­tric train­er.”

Alex Durand

In Feb­ru­ary, Sax­on­Air announced the com­ple­tion of the Air League’s inau­gur­al Elec­tric Fly­ing Schol­ar­ship, host­ed with­in its Klyne Busi­ness Avi­a­tion Cen­tre, using pow­er direct gen­er­at­ed from its recent rooftop solar PV instal­la­tion. It is look­ing for­ward to accept­ing more peo­ple to its Flight Train­ing Cen­tre in 2025.

Back­ground

For­mer­ly known as GAMTA, BBGA is the UK’s nation­al trade body rep­re­sent­ing busi­ness and gen­er­al avi­a­tion. It rep­re­sents close to 200 com­pa­nies, includ­ing air­ports, cor­po­rate flight depart­ments, oper­a­tors, avi­a­tion ser­vices organ­i­sa­tions and air­craft man­u­fac­tur­ers.  In a part­ner­ship with the Euro­pean Busi­ness Avi­a­tion Asso­ci­a­tion (EBBA), all mem­bers enjoy dual mem­ber­ship of both asso­ci­a­tions. 

For more infor­ma­tion

www.bbga.aero 

(Top image: A Velis Elec­tro — Cred­it: Tex­tron eAv­i­a­tion)

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