20th Annual Electric Aircraft Symposium Returns to Oshkosh this July

The 20^th Annu­al Elec­tric Air­craft Sym­po­sium (EAS) returns to Oshkosh, Wis­con­sin this year and will take place the week­end before the world’s largest avi­a­tion event, the Exper­i­men­tal Air­craft Association’s Air­Ven­ture Oshkosh.

Tak­ing place from July 18th to 19th, EAS 2026 is orga­nized by the Fed­er­al City Chap­ter of the Ver­ti­cal Flight Soci­ety (VFS), which has announced Ger­many’s AERO Friedrichshafen as its new sup­port­ing part­ner.

EAS was first held in 2007 and is the world’s longest run­ning con­fer­ence on elec­tric avi­a­tion. Since 2017, the sym­po­sium has been held in con­junc­tion with Air­Ven­ture Oshkosh, which attract­ed more than 700,000 atten­dees and 10,000 air­craft last year.

Tick­et prices for EAS 2026 have been reduced to stim­u­late atten­dance, with the ear­ly bird price of $200 less than half the price of sim­i­lar elec­tric avi­a­tion or advanced air mobil­i­ty (AAM) con­fer­ence.

To help inspire the next gen­er­a­tion of avi­a­tion and aero­space inno­va­tors, full-time stu­dents can attend for only $50. This year, EAS 2026 will fea­ture more than three dozen experts par­tic­i­pat­ing in 12 mod­er­at­ed in-depth dis­cus­sions cov­er­ing the full spec­trum of top­ics span­ning the entire elec­tric avi­a­tion and AAM seg­ment with insights on indus­try and gov­ern­ment devel­op­ments.

AERO Becomes Sup­port­ing Part­ner

Mike Hirschberg, Prin­ci­pal of H2 Advi­sors, LLC, and co-pro­duc­er of EAS 2026, said: “We’re delight­ed that AERO has signed on as a sup­port­ing part­ner of the Elec­tric Air­craft Sym­po­sium.

“AERO Friedrichshafen is Europe‘s lead­ing Gen­er­al Avi­a­tion and Busi­ness Avi­a­tion trade show and this year’s edi­tion, being held April 22–25 in Ger­many, is also a major plat­form for inno­va­tion in elec­tric and sus­tain­able avi­a­tion.”

Tobias Bret­zel, Show Direc­tor, AERO Friedrichshafen, added: “The teams orga­niz­ing the Elec­tric Air­craft Sym­po­sium at Oshkosh and the e‑flight-expo at AERO have col­lab­o­rat­ed for years, so it was time to strength­en our trans-Atlantic part­ner­ship for the ben­e­fit of atten­dees, spon­sors and exhibitors.

Hirschberg, Ken Swartz of Aero­me­dia Con­sul­tants, and Willi Tacke of Fly­ing Pages GmbH and e‑flight-expo have worked togeth­er on EAS pro­gram­ming since 2019.

EAS Speak­ers

Speak­ers at EAS 2026 will high­light the numer­ous con­ven­tion­al and ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing (eCTOL and eVTOL) air­craft in devel­op­ment today pow­ered by battery‑, hybrid- and hydro­gen-elec­tric propul­sion sys­tems aimed at the recre­ation, flight train­ing, gen­er­al avi­a­tion, air taxi, region­al air mobil­i­ty, car­go, aeromed­ical and spe­cial mis­sion mar­kets. Oth­er speak­ers will dis­cuss propul­sion sys­tems, infra­struc­ture, reg­u­la­tions and mar­ket trends.

In addi­tion to rep­re­sen­ta­tives from these com­pa­nies, con­firmed speak­ers include top exec­u­tives from lead­ing AAM-relat­ed com­pa­nies, Ampaire, AURA Aero, Bye Aero­space, Chica­go Ver­ti­port, Elec­tra Aero, Elec­tro Aero, H55, Hori­zon Air­craft, Hydroplane, Joby Avi­a­tion, Jump Aero, Skyfly and Whis­per Aero.

EAS will be held at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wisconsin–Oshkosh cam­pus at Reeve Memo­r­i­al Union. Each mod­er­at­ed pan­el ses­sion will include a Q&A dis­cus­sion with pre­sen­ters and atten­dees — a hall­mark of the annu­al Elec­tric Air­craft Sym­po­sium.

The focus of EAS is on tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ments and address­ing major chal­lenges like cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and infra­struc­ture for the indus­try as a whole. 

Details on the agen­da, reg­is­tra­tion and spon­sor­ships are post­ed at www.eas2026.org.

Fea­tured image: mag­niX-pow­ered Har­bour Air DHC‑2 Beaver eSea­plane dur­ing high speed water taxi on Lake Win­neba­go dur­ing EAA Air­Ven­ture Oshkosh, July 26, 2024. Pho­to by Ken­neth I. Swartz.