H55 receives Canton of Valais support to develop its electric propulsion systems

Swiss elec­tric air­craft start-up H55 is expand­ing its pres­ence by fur­ther build­ing up the company’s research, pro­duc­tion and test­ing facil­i­ties through the strong finan­cial sup­port of the Can­ton of Valais.

This lat­est con­tri­bu­tion will enable H55 to ship its elec­tric propul­sion sys­tems to air­plane man­u­fac­tur­ers by ear­ly 2022 — rep­re­sent­ing anoth­er impor­tant mile­stone in posi­tion­ing the com­pa­ny as a leader in elec­tric avi­a­tion and clean air trans­port solu­tions.

It also fol­lows the sup­port H55 already receives from The Ark Foun­da­tion, the City of Sion and the Cen­tre de Cau­tion­nement et de Finance­ment.

André Borschberg, H55’s Co-Founder and Exec­u­tive Chair­man, said: “With the sup­port of the Can­ton of Valais, H55 can now accel­er­ate its com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion plans. Work­ing with Valais is more than just finan­cial sup­port.

“We both share the same vision on how clean tech­nolo­gies can reduce car­bon emis­sions while at the same time pro­vid­ing a stim­u­lus to eco­nom­ic growth. It’s about tak­ing an impor­tant step togeth­er show­ing that pro­tect­ing the envi­ron­ment is also good for the econ­o­my.”

Air­borne and fly­ing since June 2019, the Bris­tell Ener­gic, H55’s first cus­tomer appli­ca­tion, recent­ly com­plet­ed an impor­tant flight test pro­gramme. It is an elec­tric train­er air­plane for flight schools and pilot train­ing, man­u­fac­tured by BRM Aero.

The air­plane has an endurance of 1.5 hours, pro­vid­ing 45–60 min­utes of mis­sion flight with enough reserves, a typ­i­cal pilot train­ing pro­gramme.

Cre­at­ed in 2017 and backed by ND Cap­i­tal (Sil­i­con Val­ley), H55 is a tech­no­log­i­cal spin-off from Solar Impulse, the first elec­tric air­plane to have flown around the world.

Co-found­ed by Borschberg, Sébastien Demont and Gre­go­ry Blatt, H55 devel­ops cer­ti­fied elec­tric propul­sion solu­tions to enable the next avi­a­tion rev­o­lu­tion.

The com­pa­ny focus­es on the entire propul­sion chain, start­ing from the ener­gy source and its man­age­ment, through thrust and pow­er, to pilot inter­face and con­trol sys­tems.

And despite the chal­lenges of the COVID pan­dem­ic, H55 is on track to main­tain its goal to cer­ti­fy its elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem by the end of 2021.