Horizon Aircraft Awarded “USD2 Million INSAT Grant, Helps Fund All-Weather eVTOL Project”

Cana­da-based Hori­zon Air­craft recent­ly announced a USD2 mil­lion grant from the INSAT pro­gram (Ini­tia­tive for Sus­tain­able Avi­a­tion Tech­nol­o­gy) to help fund CRYSTAL, an all-weath­er eVTOL project in part­ner­ship with Flight Cen­tre of Excel­lence (3C) and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to (UOT), reports a press release. The pro­gram has an esti­mat­ed total expen­di­ture of USD10.5 mil­lion.

The release explains, “Project CRYSTAL (Cana­di­an Research Yield­ing Sus­Tain­able All-weath­er Lift sys­tem) is to focus on devel­op­ing and test­ing an all-weath­er ver­ti­cal propul­sion sys­tem for eVTOL air­craft like Hori­zon Air­craft’s hybrid eVTOL, the Cavorite X7.”

It con­tin­ues, “The first phase of the project will focus on char­ac­ter­is­ing advanced ice detec­tion tech­nolo­gies and pro­tec­tive tech­nolo­gies such as ice-pho­bic and elec­trother­mal coat­ing solu­tions devel­oped by UOT. With sup­port from 3C, the sec­ond phase will focus on test­ing and ana­lyz­ing the via­bil­i­ty of the tech­nolo­gies on the Cavorite X7.”

Michel Dion, CEO of Strix , (non-prof­it organ­i­sa­tion pow­er­ing the INSAT pro­gram), com­ment­ed, “By sup­port­ing inno­v­a­tive com­pa­nies like Hori­zon, we are help­ing to strength­en Canada’s glob­al com­pet­i­tive­ness while accel­er­at­ing the tran­si­tion toward a more sus­tain­able, for­ward-look­ing aero­space indus­try-one that reflects the inge­nu­ity and ambi­tion of Cana­di­an entre­pre­neurs.”

Strix is ded­i­cat­ed to pro­mot­ing inno­va­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tive research in the Cana­di­an aero­space indus­try and relat­ed sec­tors.

Phil Cole, VP of 3C Busi­ness Devel­op­ment, remarked, “Project CRYSTAL is pro­found­ly impor­tant, not only to our part­ners in this project at Hori­zon and UOT, but poten­tial­ly to any tra­di­tion­al fixed wing or rotary wing air vehi­cle, advanced air mobil­i­ty vehi­cle and drone that wish­es to oper­ate in cli­mac­tic con­di­tions that could lead to the accre­tion of ice.”

A major­i­ty of heli­copters can­not oper­ate in known icing con­di­tions due to a risk of ice form­ing on rotor blades or in engine inlets, which can lead to severe vibra­tions, decreased sta­bil­i­ty, pow­er fail­ure and loss of lift. 

Despite these pro­hib­i­tive oper­at­ing lim­i­ta­tions, heli­copters cur­rent­ly play an impor­tant role glob­al­ly, fly­ing crit­i­cal mis­sions such as mede­vac, dis­as­ter relief, and in the Defence sec­tor. Devel­op­ing an all-weath­er eVTOL that is safer, faster, more eco­nom­i­cal and bet­ter for the envi­ron­ment, like the Cavorite X7, could pro­vide a bet­ter solu­tion for exe­cut­ing a wide range of impor­tant oper­a­tions.

Phil Cole

Bran­don Robin­son, co-Founder and CEO of Hori­zon, explained, “Our team has cal­cu­lat­ed that if an all-weath­er Cavorite X7 replaces only 4 per­cent of the glob­al heli­copter fleet, a reduc­tion of 2.6 bil­lion pounds of CO2e could be real­ized annu­al­ly.”

He con­tin­ued, “In addi­tion to being more sus­tain­able, our air­craft is pro­ject­ed to cost up to 75 per­cent less per kilo­me­tre than a heli­copter while mov­ing more peo­ple or car­go at much high­er cruise speeds.”

Hori­zon plans to cer­ti­fy the Cavorite X7 ‘for Flight Into Known Icing (FIKI)’. This is a rare cer­ti­fi­ca­tion across ear­ly con­cept eVTOLs and heli­copters.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion

www.horizonaircraft.com

https://strix.aero/programs/insat/6

www.certcentercanada.com

(Top image: L to R): Phil Cole (VP Busi­ness Devel­op­ment, 3C), Bran­don Robin­son (Co-Founder & CEO, Hori­zon Air­craft), Prof. Ali Dolataba­di (Fac­ul­ty of Applied Sci­ence & Engi­neer­ing, UofT), Michel Dion (CEO, Strix), Denis Godin (CTO & Deputy CEO, Strix) and Jason O’Neill (COO, Hori­zon Air­craft)

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