Watch Video: “REGENT Begins Sea Trials of First Passenger-Carrying Seaglider”

U.S‑based REGENT, a devel­op­er and man­u­fac­tur­er of elec­tric seaglid­ers, announced this week the world’s first full-scale crewed glid­er had com­plet­ed its ini­tial on-water tri­als, reports a press release. 

The tests show­cased “The suc­cess­ful tech­ni­cal val­i­da­tion of the nov­el mar­itime ves­sel with humans on board, mark­ing a piv­otal moment in trans­porta­tion his­to­ry,” says the release.

It con­tin­ues, “The 12-pas­sen­ger Viceroy seaglid­er pro­to­type, at 55 ft long with a 65 ft wingspan, is the largest-ever all-elec­tric fly­ing machine and rep­re­sents a nov­el mode of trans­porta­tion. The high-speed ves­sel oper­ates exclu­sive­ly over water in three modes — float­ing on the hull; foil­ing above the waves on hydro­foils; and fly­ing in ground effect with­in one wingspan of the sur­face of the water.”

Mike Klink­er, co-Founder and CTO of REGENT, com­ment­ed, “Step­ping off the dock and on to the Viceroy for the first time was sur­re­al. I felt hon­oured to be in the cock­pit as she left the dock for the first time and began sea tri­als.” He con­tin­ued, “This was the first voy­age of a ves­sel that is des­tined to trans­form mobil­i­ty — the era of seaglid­ers has begun.”

In true mar­itime tra­di­tion, REGENT chris­tened the ves­sel, ‘Pal­adin’, before it was low­ered into Nar­ra­gansett Bay, Rhode Island. 

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This was the first in a series of on-water tests that will cul­mi­nate in the inau­go­ra­tion of human seaglid­er flight mid-year. The release con­tin­ues, “Sea tri­als fol­low months of rig­or­ous sub-sys­tem test­ing of the crit­i­cal onboard sys­tems, includ­ing motors, bat­ter­ies, elec­tron­ics, mechan­i­cal sys­tems and vehi­cle con­trol soft­ware.” Since REGEN­T’s found­ing in 2020, the com­pa­ny has made rapid progress toward mar­ket entry.

Bil­ly Thal­heimer, REGENT Co-founder and CEO, remarked, “This is the first step toward deliv­er­ing Viceroy seaglid­ers around the world and ful­fill­ing our glob­al order book. It is a tes­ta­ment to the ded­i­ca­tion of our world-class team and part­ners across the globe that we’ve accom­plished this his­toric mile­stone in just four years.” Adding, “Today, we’re one step clos­er to meet­ing what we have now val­i­dat­ed as a mas­sive glob­al mar­ket demand for seaglid­ers.”

This demand has result­ed in the com­pa­ny build­ing a glob­al order book worth more than USD9 bil­lion across six con­ti­nents, as well as devel­op­ing part­ner­ships across gov­ern­ment offices, busi­ness­es and com­mu­ni­ty groups in coastal regions around the world to facil­i­tate mar­ket entry. 

The com­pa­ny con­tin­ues to advance its dual-use mis­sion with U.S Marine Corps, by con­tin­u­ing their col­lab­o­ra­tion in devel­op­ing the seaglider’s advanced mar­itime defence, logis­tics and search-and-res­cue capa­bil­i­ties.

REGENT suc­cess­ful­ly flew its quar­ter-scale pro­to­type in 2022, val­i­dat­ing the inno­v­a­tive tech­no­log­i­cal approach to redefin­ing wing-in-ground craft (WIGs) — ves­sels that oper­ate in ground effect low over the sur­face of the water. Mean­while, in Jan­u­ary, the com­pa­ny broke ground on a 255,000 sq. ft man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty in the Quon­set Busi­ness Park in Rhode Island, expect­ed to come online in 2026. 

Last month REGENT signed an agree­ment with Strate­gic Devel­op­ment Fund (SDF), an Abu Dhabi-based invest­ment com­pa­ny and part of EDGE Group, to estab­lish a joint ven­ture that is to bring seaglid­er man­u­fac­tur­ing capa­bil­i­ties, main­te­nance ser­vices and crew train­ing to the UAE.

The sea glid­er will trav­el at up to 180mph to ser­vice routes up to 180 miles on a sin­gle charge. The com­pa­ny has raised more than USD90 mil­lion from investors includ­ing 8090 Indus­tries, Founders Fund, Japan Air­lines and Lock­heed Mar­tin.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.regentcraft.com

(Images: REGENT)

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