Dovetail Electric Aviation Signs Deal for Electric Cessna Caravan Conversion with Ludens Aviation

Dove­tail Elec­tric Avi­a­tion, an Aus­tralian-Span­ish com­pa­ny devel­op­ing elec­tric and hybrid-elec­tric propul­sion sys­tems for region­al and gen­er­al avi­a­tion, has signed its first bind­ing launch cus­tomer agree­ment with Norway’s Ludens Avi­a­tion AS for the con­ver­sion of a Cess­na Car­a­van to elec­tric pow­er.

Under this agree­ment, Ludens Avi­a­tion will become the launch cus­tomer and launch oper­a­tor for Dovetail’s first elec­tric Cess­na Car­a­van con­ver­sion. The agree­ment includes a cus­tomer com­mit­ment deposit payable by Ludens Avi­a­tion, mark­ing the first bind­ing com­mer­cial com­mit­ment for Dovetail’s elec­tric air­craft retro­fit pro­gramme.

The agree­ment estab­lish­es a path­way for Ludens Avi­a­tion to acquire and oper­ate the first Dove­tail-con­vert­ed elec­tric Car­a­van fol­low­ing com­ple­tion of the retro­fit pro­gramme and issuance of the rel­e­vant EASA Sup­ple­men­tal Type Cer­tifi­cate. It also pro­vides a frame­work for the air­craft to sup­port con­ver­sion, test­ing and pre-cer­ti­fi­ca­tion activ­i­ties as Dove­tail advances towards first flight and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

The Cess­na Car­a­van is the ini­tial plat­form in Dovetail’s retro­fit strat­e­gy. The type is wide­ly used for region­al trans­port, car­go, island hop­ping, scenic flights and sky­div­ing. Its short-cycle mis­sion pro­files and oper­a­tional ver­sa­til­i­ty make it a prac­ti­cal can­di­date for elec­tric con­ver­sion. Dovetail’s solu­tion cen­tres on two pro­pri­etary sys­tems: DovePack, its avi­a­tion bat­tery, and Dove­Pow­er, its inte­grat­ed elec­tric propul­sion unit. These are intend­ed to replace con­ven­tion­al tur­bo­prop pow­er­plants with the aim of reduc­ing noise, emis­sions and oper­at­ing costs.

David Doral, Dovetail’s CEO, described the agree­ment as a com­mer­cial mile­stone that moves the com­pa­ny from a pipeline of let­ters of intent into bind­ing con­tracts and a rev­enue-gen­er­a­tion phase. He not­ed that Ludens is expect­ed to assist in bring­ing the tech­nol­o­gy into oper­a­tional use, par­tic­u­lar­ly for sky­div­ing.

“This is a major com­mer­cial mile­stone for Dove­tail, rep­re­sent­ing a tip­ping point as our
strong pipeline of LOI’s starts turn­ing into bind­ing agree­ments, enter­ing into a rev­enue
gen­er­a­tion phase.”

Kjetil Kriken, Ludens’ CEO, said the part­ner­ship aligns with skydiving’s short cycles, fixed pat­terns and sen­si­tiv­i­ty to noise and emis­sions.

“With this agree­ment we are not just order­ing an air­craft — we are build­ing the oper­at­ing mod­el, the charg­ing infra­struc­ture and the financ­ing tem­plate that will put elec­tric Car­a­vans to work com­mer­cial­ly in Nor­way.”

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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