VoltAero Partners with AltiSky, Expands to North America “for Cassio Aircraft Assembly, Sales, Training and Support”

VoltAero has signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU) with AltiSky for the Cas­sio elec­tric-hybrid aircraft’s local assem­bly and dis­tri­b­u­tion across the U.S, Cana­da, Mex­i­co and the Caribbean, reports a press release.

Under the MOU terms, AltiSky is to build a 30,000-sq.ft Cas­sio assem­bly facil­i­ty with an adjoin­ing deliv­ery cen­tre in the U.S. along with a high qual­i­ty train­ing com­plex that includes a flight sim­u­la­tor. Also, the com­pa­ny will estab­lish a net­work of region­al main­te­nance sup­port facil­i­ties.

This col­lab­o­ra­tion was recent­ly announced (Novem­ber 19th-21st) at the Air Expo Abu Dhabi, where VoltAero exhib­it­ed “as part of the company’s strat­e­gy to expand its glob­al indus­tri­al and sup­port net­work while ready­ing the pro­duc­tion, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and ser­vice entry of its Cas­sio air­craft prod­uct line, explains the release.” 

The agree­ment fol­lows VoltAero’s open­ing ear­li­er this month of its pri­ma­ry Cas­sio final assem­bly facil­i­ty and new HQ at France’s Rochefort Air­port.

Watch Video: “VoltAero Pre­pares for Pro­duc­tion of Cas­sio Elec­tric-Hybrid Air­craft at New Facil­i­ty in Nou­velle-Aquitaine, France”

Bill Minkoff, co-Founder and Pres­i­dent of AltiSky, com­ment­ed, “I am con­vinced that VoltAero’s approach is tru­ly real­is­tic, bring­ing Cassio’s con­fig­u­ra­tion as a con­ven­tion­al take­off and land­ing air­craft togeth­er with the company’s pro­pri­etary elec­tric-hybrid propul­sion sys­tem.”

He con­tin­ued, “Cas­sio uses bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy and pow­er out­put lev­els avail­able today, backed by the safe­ty of VoltAero’s dual-source elec­tric-hybrid pow­er­train. Addi­tion­al­ly, its oper­a­tion from air­ports reduces risks that eVTOLs face in terms of urban accep­tance and the need for sig­nif­i­cant infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment.”

Minkoff is an expe­ri­enced avi­a­tor, hav­ing logged 20,000 hours in var­i­ous types of gen­er­al avi­a­tion, com­mer­cial and mil­i­tary air­craft, includ­ing serv­ing as a U.S Navy fight­er pilot and instruc­tor, and as a line check cap­tain with Delta Air­lines. He also co-Found­ed the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty con­sul­tan­cy com­pa­ny and served as Vice Pres­i­dent of the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty Asso­ci­a­tion.

VoltAero at the Air Expo Abu Dhabi

Jean Bot­ti, VoltAero’s CEO and CTO, added that the AltiSky part­ner­ship opens the all-impor­tant North Amer­i­can mar­ket for Cas­sio air­craft. “Bill Minkoff’s avi­a­tion knowl­edge, along with his exten­sive busi­ness net­work and proven track record in air­craft sales, pro­vide a part­ner that will posi­tion Cas­sio as a bench­mark in North Amer­i­can region­al air mobil­i­ty.”

The release con­tin­ues, “VoltAero’s Cas­sio elec­tric-hybrid air­craft fam­i­ly con­sists of three ver­sions that seat from five to 12 per­sons, and which are tai­lored for region­al com­mer­cial oper­a­tors, air taxi/charter com­pa­nies, pri­vate and busi­ness owners/operators, as well as in util­i­ty-cat­e­go­ry ser­vice for car­go, postal deliv­ery and med­ical evac­u­a­tion (Mede­vac) appli­ca­tions.”

VoltAero’s first pro­duc­tion air­craft ver­sion it to be the Cas­sio 330, con­fig­ured with a five-seat inte­ri­or 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, to be sized for a 10/12-seat capac­i­ty with elec­tric-hybrid propul­sion pow­er of 600 kilo­watts.

Mean­while, the VoltAero propul­sion utilis­es the Safran ENGINeUS elec­tric motor 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 from Kawasa­ki Motors, 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/

(Images: Volt Aero)

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