Electra Selects Atlas to Manufacture EL9 Airframes

Elec­tra has signed an agree­ment with Atlas to man­u­fac­ture and assem­ble air­frames for its EL9 Ultra Short hybrid-elec­tric air­craft as the pro­gramme moves towards flight test­ing, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion.

Under the agree­ment, Atlas will pro­duce EL9 air­frames for Electra’s flight test and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gramme. Man­u­fac­tur­ing work is sched­uled to begin in Sep­tem­ber at Atlas facil­i­ties in Wichi­ta, Kansas, with the first deliv­er­ies expect­ed in 2027.

The part­ner­ship is intend­ed to help Elec­tra devel­op the pro­duc­tion archi­tec­ture for the nine-pas­sen­ger air­craft and reduce man­u­fac­tur­ing risks ahead of scaled pro­duc­tion. Atlas will con­tribute aero­space man­u­fac­tur­ing, aerostruc­tures, automa­tion and pro­duc­tion-sys­tem devel­op­ment exper­tise.

The EL9 is designed to oper­ate from run­ways as short as 150 feet, using dis­trib­uted elec­tric propul­sion and blown-lift aero­dy­nam­ics. A tur­bo­gen­er­a­tor pro­vides onboard elec­tri­cal pow­er for region­al oper­a­tions, allow­ing the air­craft to com­bine hybrid-elec­tric propul­sion with con­ven­tion­al fixed-wing range.

Elec­tra sees the EL9 as an air­craft for region­al routes where con­ven­tion­al air­ports may be too dis­tant or imprac­ti­cal. The company’s con­cept, which it calls “Direct Avi­a­tion”, involves oper­at­ing from small­er sites clos­er to com­mu­ni­ties and reduc­ing the need for pas­sen­gers to trav­el to major air­ports.

Elec­tra has also select­ed Spring­field, Ohio, for its first EL9 pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty. The com­pa­ny plans to invest $850 mil­lion in the site, which is expect­ed to even­tu­al­ly sup­port pro­duc­tion of up to 800 air­craft annu­al­ly.

The com­pa­ny says it has more than 2,200 pro­vi­sion­al orders from over 60 oper­a­tors world­wide. Bris­tow Group has sep­a­rate­ly secured a first deliv­ery posi­tion for five EL9 air­craft, with options for a fur­ther 45, sub­ject to cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

Elec­tra is tar­get­ing com­mer­cial entry into ser­vice in 2030, with this Atlas agree­ment being an ear­ly step towards the man­u­fac­tur­ing capac­i­ty need­ed for large-scale com­mer­cial deploy­ment.

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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