Ascendance Technologies and AFI KLM E&M collaborate to explore VTOL maintenance solutions

Ascen­dance Tech­nolo­gies and AFI KLM E&M have signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MoU) to explore part­ner­ships in the field of elec­tri­cal­ly pow­ered air­craft and sus­tain­able avi­a­tion, reports a press release.

The mem­o­ran­dum allows the two com­pa­nies to inves­ti­gate poten­tial col­lab­o­ra­tions dur­ing the com­ing months in four main areas:-

: Line Main­te­nance

: Com­po­nent Repair

: Mechan­ics Train­ing

: Air­wor­thi­ness Man­age­ment

Jean-Christophe Lam­bert

Jean-Christophe Lam­bert, Co-founder and CEO of Ascen­dance, com­ment­ed, “Main­te­nance is obvi­ous­ly at the cen­tre of our cus­tomers’ con­cerns and this col­lab­o­ra­tion with AFI KLM E&M is a major step towards pro­vid­ing them reli­able solu­tions.”

Géry Mor­treux, of EVP Air France Indus­tries, added, “At AFI KLM E&M, We are very inter­est­ed in elec­tric and hydride elec­tric propul­sion tech­nolo­gies, which are set to be future busi­ness dri­vers over the next decade. I believe that this type of co-oper­a­tion is a fur­ther illus­tra­tion of the gen­er­al mobil­i­sa­tion of our indus­try to decar­bonise avi­a­tion.”

The release states, “With its expe­ri­ence as an air­line-MRO, AFI KLM E&M will be able to answer the start­up air­craft mak­er’s ques­tions about the issues and chal­lenges involved in devel­op­ing main­te­nance poli­cies that are oper­a­tional­ly and finan­cial­ly effi­cient.”

Back­ground

Ascen­dance is work­ing on an VTOL called Atea. The air­craft has 5 seats and has a range of 400 km due to its to Ster­na propul­sion sys­tem, a dis­trib­uted hybrid elec­tric pow­er­train with a mod­u­lar ener­getic approach to accept sus­tain­able avi­a­tion fuel up to Hydro­gen. The cer­ti­fi­ca­tion activ­i­ties regard­ing these tech­nolo­gies have offi­cial­ly start­ed and an Atea pro­to­type is expect­ed to achieve its first flight in 2023.

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