Jekta signs MOU with Honeywell For Development of PHA-ZE 100 Amphibious Flying Boat

Jek­ta, the Swiss-based man­u­fac­tur­er of the elec­tri­cal­ly pow­ered Pas­sen­ger Hydro Air­craft Zero Emis­sion 100 (PHA-ZE 100) amphibi­ous fly­ing boat, has signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MoU) with Hon­ey­well, reports a press release.

The col­lab­o­ra­tion “sig­ni­fies the first step in explor­ing, iden­ti­fy­ing, and con­firm­ing a suite of Hon­ey­well sys­tems to inte­grate with the world’s first 19-seat, elec­tri­cal­ly pow­ered, region­al, amphibi­ous air­craft,” explains the release.

Hon­ey­well will design and co-devel­op aero­nau­ti­cal sys­tems “that will opti­mise effi­cien­cies, enhance stream­lined oper­a­tions, and aug­ment the safe­ty of air­craft oper­a­tions, while ensur­ing min­i­mal oper­a­tional envi­ron­men­tal impact and deliv­er­ing a best-in-class pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence.” Jek­ta and Hon­ey­well will also part­ner on “dis­cern­ing the via­bil­i­ty of sin­gle-pilot oper­a­tions for com­mer­cial fly­ing of the PHA-ZE 100 class of air­craft.”

The MoU signed last month, marks a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for Jek­ta as it lever­ages Honeywell’s exten­sive exper­tise, while max­imis­ing “knowl­edge trans­fer in its endeav­ours to deliv­er a new class of amphibi­ous fly­ing boats to the glob­al region­al sea­plane mar­ket.”

The release con­tin­ues, “Hon­ey­well avion­ics, elec­tric engines, flight con­trol sys­tems, and con­nec­tiv­i­ty will all be dis­cussed under the terms of the MOU, with the final sys­tem archi­tec­ture and inte­gra­tion to be con­firmed by the end of 2023.”

George Alafi­nov, CEO of Jek­ta Switzer­land, com­ment­ed, “We want to part­ner with sup­pli­ers renowned for their vision, exper­tise and flex­i­bil­i­ty. Hon­ey­well has all these qual­i­ties and more and the part­ner­ship will add real val­ue to the devel­op­ment of an air­craft that oper­a­tors and pas­sen­gers will love. The sign­ing of this MoU is a real vote of con­fi­dence for Jek­ta and the PHA-ZE 100.”

Back­ground

The PHA-ZE 100 amphibi­ous fly­ing boat is to be cer­ti­fied to EASA CS-23 and U.S FAA FAR-23 stan­dards for fixed-wing pas­sen­ger air­craft. It is opti­mised to serve coastal and island com­mu­ni­ties lakes and water­ways in waves up to 1.2m high, as well as run­ways, the lat­ter using its stan­dard retractable wheeled land­ing gear. Jek­ta is aim­ing to reduce per-pas­sen­ger-per-hour costs by more than 70 per­cent com­pared to cur­rent sea­planes.

Pow­ered by elec­tric motors sup­plied with ener­gy from bat­ter­ies or hydro­gen fuel cells, the PHA-ZE 100’s ini­tial flight endurance on bat­tery pow­er is pro­ject­ed at one hour, with a 30-minute reserve.

Led by Alafi­nov, Jek­ta has more than two decades of expe­ri­ence design­ing and build­ing fly­ing boats, includ­ing the eight-seat, com­pos­ite LA‑8, and D‑Borey ultra­light. It is cre­at­ing a mod­ern, 26,901 m² pro­duc­tion and flight test facil­i­ty with­in the Swiss Aero­pole Clus­ter in the can­ton of Vaud.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://jekta.swiss

https://www.honeywell.com/us/en

(Top image: Jek­ta)