Ampaire Hybrid-Electric Aircraft Completes Historic Alaska Flight 

Ampaire Inc announced this week that its hybrid-elec­tric air­craft suc­cess­ful­ly accom­plished a 3,400-mile series of flights from South­ern Cal­i­for­nia to Fair­banks Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, Alas­ka on August 13th, reports a press release. 

The release explains, “This his­toric flight rep­re­sents a major mile­stone in elec­tric avi­a­tion: It is the first hybrid-elec­tric air­craft deploy­ment in Alas­ka, the first inter­na­tion­al hybrid-elec­tric flight, and the first hybrid-elec­tric air­craft to gain both FAA (USA) and TCCA (Cana­da) spe­cial air­wor­thi­ness approvals. It’s the fur­thest north any hybrid-elec­tric air­craft has ever flown, enabled by the first-ever deploy­ments of mobile elec­tric air­craft charg­ers in Alas­ka and Cana­da.”

Kevin Noertk­er, Ampaire co-Founder and CEO, com­ment­ed, “This first-of-its-kind flight reflects the mon­u­men­tal progress we have made in elec­tri­fied avi­a­tion, and we’re excit­ed to con­tin­ue deploy­ing solu­tions that increase reli­a­bil­i­ty, acces­si­bil­i­ty and cost sav­ings for com­mu­ni­ties around the globe.”

He con­tin­ued, “At the end of the day, these projects are all about peo­ple – cre­at­ing jobs and eco­nom­ic growth, increas­ing con­nec­tiv­i­ty while decreas­ing costs, ben­e­fit­ing our com­mu­ni­ties and build­ing our future togeth­er.” 

Kevin Noertk­er

Ampaire is a mem­ber of the Launch Alas­ka Port­fo­lio and grad­u­ate of Launch Alaska’s Tech Deploy­ment Track and devel­oped the hybrid-elec­tric air­craft with sup­port from the U.S Depart­ment of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Ener­gy (ARPA‑E). 

Designed as a test­bed air­craft for the deploy­ment of high-pow­ered elec­tron­ics, invert­ers, motors and relat­ed sys­tems, the air­craft is a retro­fit­ted Cess­na 337 Sky­mas­ter that now deliv­ers 50–70 per­cent fuel cost sav­ings and 25–50 per­cent main­te­nance cost sav­ings. 

Dr. Eve­lyn Wang, ARPA‑E Direc­tor, remarked, “To enable low-cost, low-car­bon trans­porta­tion, we need to com­mer­cialise elec­tri­fied air­craft tech­nolo­gies and realise the full poten­tial of region­al air­ports. If we rise to this chal­lenge, we can con­nect Alaskans and all Amer­i­cans to one anoth­er, trans­port goods and pro­vide ser­vices includ­ing med­ical care.”

He con­tin­ued, “We can dri­ve down the cost of trav­el and make it acces­si­ble for all com­mu­ni­ties. This his­toric trip is a mile­stone on the road to com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion and ARPA‑E is proud to sup­port Ampaire’s work to achieve the full poten­tial of hybrid-elec­tric and elec­tric air­craft.” 

To achieve its his­toric flight to Alas­ka, the release says, “The Ampaire air­craft nav­i­gat­ed wild­fire smoke, rain and rugged ter­rain and demon­strat­ed improved capa­bil­i­ty beyond Ampaire’s pre­vi­ous deploy­ments in Cal­i­for­nia, Hawaii, and the Unit­ed King­dom.”

Alas­ka busi­ness­es, research insti­tu­tions, elect­ed offi­cials includ­ing U.S. Sen­a­tor Lisa Murkows­ki, as well as oth­er part­ners, all col­lab­o­rat­ed to make the event pos­si­ble, then gath­ered to wel­come the plane to Fair­banks. 

Fair­banks Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, Alas­ka

Dr. Erin Whit­ney, Direc­tor of the Arc­tic Ener­gy Office at the U.S. Depart­ment of Ener­gy said, “Alas­ka is well-known for its inno­va­tion and dis­cov­ery, so it’s fit­ting that this ground­break­ing hybrid-elec­tric flight made his­to­ry in Alas­ka. We wel­come clean ener­gy adop­tion and coop­er­a­tion as we con­tin­ue to lead the way in the Arc­tic.” 

Isaac Van­der­burg, Launch Alas­ka Pres­i­dent and CEO added, “Tech deploy­ments like this are key to advanc­ing the ener­gy tran­si­tion, with imme­di­ate and long-term ben­e­fits for the com­mu­ni­ties they serve. Avi­a­tion plays a huge role in Alaska’s econ­o­my and way of life, and we’re so proud to help sup­port com­pa­nies like Ampaire as they devel­op solu­tions to decar­bonise and advance one of our most vital modes of trans­porta­tion.” 

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.ampaire.com/

https://www.launchalaska.com/

https://arpa‑e.energy.gov/

https://www.energy.gov/arctic/arctic-energy-office

(Top image cred­it: Ampaire)