Ampaire Launches Hybrid-Electric Regional Flight Operations in Utah

Ampaire has begun hybrid-elec­tric flight oper­a­tions in Utah as part of the state’s uFLY pro­gram, mark­ing the start of real-world test­ing under the U.S. Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion and Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion’s eVTOL Inte­gra­tion Pilot Pro­gram (eIPP). The announce­ment comes from Ampaire itself, along with two addi­tion­al announce­ments from the FAA and from UDOT.

The com­pa­ny is par­tic­i­pat­ing as an offi­cial air­craft man­u­fac­tur­er (OEM) part­ner in the ini­tia­tive and says it is the only hybrid-elec­tric propul­sion devel­op­er involved in the fed­er­al pro­gram.

The first phase of oper­a­tions uses Ampaire’s hybrid-elec­tric Elec­tric EEL (EEL) air­craft on region­al routes between Salt Lake City and Cedar City. The flights are designed to demon­strate how hybrid-elec­tric air­craft can oper­ate on exist­ing region­al routes and air­port infra­struc­ture with­out requir­ing new ground charg­ing sys­tems or oth­er ded­i­cat­ed facil­i­ties.

Ahead of the offi­cial launch, the EEL flew from Long Beach, Cal­i­for­nia, to Salt Lake City on 3 August, cov­er­ing approx­i­mate­ly 648 miles in 4 hours and 18 min­utes. The for­mal uFLY oper­a­tions began on 6 August with a flight between Salt Lake City and Cedar City, a route of around 240 miles com­plet­ed in 1 hour and 45 min­utes. The air­craft is then sched­uled to return to Long Beach, bring­ing the three-leg mis­sion to approx­i­mate­ly 1,340 miles over 10 flight hours.

Accord­ing to Ampaire, the Salt Lake City-Cedar City route reflects the types of region­al mis­sions com­mon­ly flown by car­go oper­a­tors, pas­sen­ger air­lines and com­mu­ni­ty air ser­vice providers. The broad­er uFLY pro­gram will assess oper­a­tional readi­ness, route per­for­mance, infra­struc­ture require­ments and the inte­gra­tion of advanced air­craft into exist­ing avi­a­tion net­works.

The ini­tia­tive is one of eight projects select­ed nation­al­ly under the FAA’s eIPP pro­gram, which aims to eval­u­ate advanced air­craft oper­a­tions through col­lab­o­ra­tion between man­u­fac­tur­ers, oper­a­tors, gov­ern­ment agen­cies and research organ­i­sa­tions.

Ampaire said the oper­a­tional flights build on demon­stra­tion mis­sions com­plet­ed between Cal­i­for­nia and Utah in July. Dur­ing those ear­li­er flights, the com­pa­ny eval­u­at­ed air­craft per­for­mance in Utah’s moun­tain­ous ter­rain and high-den­si­ty-alti­tude con­di­tions.

The EEL is based on a mod­i­fied Cess­na 337 Sky­mas­ter, com­bin­ing an elec­tric motor dri­ving the front pro­peller with a con­ven­tion­al com­bus­tion engine pow­er­ing the rear pro­peller. Ampaire says the hybrid con­fig­u­ra­tion is intend­ed to reduce fuel con­sump­tion while main­tain­ing the range and oper­a­tional flex­i­bil­i­ty required for region­al avi­a­tion.

Future phas­es of the uFLY pro­gram are expect­ed to intro­duce Ampaire’s Eco Car­a­van, a hybrid-elec­tric upgrade for the Cess­na Grand Car­a­van that the com­pa­ny intends to com­mer­cialise. The Eco Car­a­van will use the AMP-H570 hybrid-elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem, which is designed to recharge its bat­ter­ies dur­ing flight while oper­at­ing with­in exist­ing air­port infra­struc­ture.

Thomas Sleightholm

Thomas is a con­tent writer for eVTOL Insights, cov­er­ing all aspects of the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem. Got a sto­ry for him? Please send an email to editorial@evtolinsights.com

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