PAS 2025: “VoltAero Unveils Production Configuration of Cassio 330 Electric-Hybrid Aircraft”

VoltAero unveiled this week at the Paris Air­show (PAS), a pro­duc­tion ver­sion of its Cas­sio 330 elec­tric-hybrid air­craft for region­al trans­porta­tion, reports a press release.

This con­fig­u­ra­tion rep­re­sents an evo­lu­tion of the 330’s design, reflect­ing the company’s tight work­ing rela­tion­ship with the Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (EASA) air­wor­thi­ness cer­ti­fi­ca­tion agency through­out the aircraft’s devel­op­ment, apply­ing the Design Organ­i­sa­tion Approval (DOA).

The release explains, “Var­i­ous fac­tors have led to this evo­lu­tion, result­ing in decreased com­plex­i­ty for the Cas­sio 330’s air­wor­thi­ness cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and align­ing its over­all design in com­pli­ance with EASA’s lat­est CS.23 cer­ti­fi­ca­tion spec­i­fi­ca­tions for nor­mal cat­e­go­ry air­planes.”

Jean Bot­ti, VoltAero’s CEO & Chief Tech­nol­o­gy Offi­cer, com­ment­ed, “Our strat­e­gy remains unchanged by using safe and effi­cient elec­tric-hybrid propul­sion and pow­er tech­nolo­gies that are real­is­ti­cal­ly avail­able today.” He con­tin­ued, “Then apply­ing them to a con­ven­tion­al takeoff/landing air­craft for sus­tain­able region­al trans­porta­tion using exist­ing air­port infra­struc­ture.”

At the heart of VoltAero’s evo­lu­tion of the Cas­sio 330 pro­duc­tion ver­sion is the ‘push­er elec­tric motor,’ installed on each side of the aft fuse­lage, as well as a ther­mal engine inside the air­craft, which serves as a range exten­der by recharg­ing the onboard bat­ter­ies. 

Dur­ing taxi, take­off and ini­tial flight phas­es, the 330 oper­ates on all-elec­tric propul­sion for eco-effi­cient and qui­et oper­a­tions. The ther­mal engine recharges the bat­ter­ies dur­ing cruise flight as a range exten­der.

This series-hybrid archi­tec­ture reflects a changeover from the aircraft’s orig­i­nal par­al­lel-hybrid con­fig­u­ra­tion, that incor­po­rat­ed an in-line com­bi­na­tion of an elec­tri­cal motor and ther­mal engine to dri­ve a sin­gle pro­peller.

Anoth­er vis­i­ble dif­fer­ence for the Cas­sio 330’s pro­duc­tion con­fig­u­ra­tion is VoltAero’s adop­tion of a T‑tail instead of the orig­i­nal design’s twin booms that sup­port­ed a high-set hor­i­zon­tal tail. This change elim­i­nates the poten­tial of dam­age to the twin booms in the event of a pro­peller blade fail­ure.

The release con­tin­ues, “The new con­fig­u­ra­tion has a ful­ly redun­dant archi­tec­ture for oper­a­tional safe­ty. This begins with the two aft-fuse­lage-mount­ed Safran ENGINeUS smart elec­tric motors, plac­ing the 330 in the mul­ti-engine air­craft cat­e­go­ry and open­ing its poten­tial use in com­mer­cial air trans­port oper­a­tions.”

And goes on, “Con­tribut­ing to the configuration’s designed-in redun­dan­cy is VoltAero’s use of two indi­vid­ual, inde­pen­dent bat­tery strings that are cou­pled with the ENGINeUS motors. Addi­tion­al­ly, Safran’s ENGINeUS design has two sep­a­rate­ly-pow­ered sta­tor wind­ing chan­nels that can oper­ate inde­pen­dent­ly – referred to as ‘half-engine-inop­er­a­tive’ (HEI) func­tion­al­i­ty.”

The 330’s inte­ri­or lay­out remains unchanged, accom­mo­dat­ing the pilot and up to five pas­sen­gers in a good-size cab­in, retain­ing the mod­u­lar­i­ty for peo­ple trans­porta­tion, car­go oper­a­tions and med­ical evacuation/air ambu­lance mis­sions. A large door for­ward of the wing offers access for pas­sen­gers with reduced mobil­i­ty, espe­cial­ly on PSO (Pub­lic Ser­vice Oblig­a­tion) flights serv­ing air­ports that are not on pri­ma­ry air­line routes.

The Cas­sio 330 ‘old design’ air­craft

VoltAero is to pro­duce the Cas­sio 330 at a pur­pose-built 2,400-sq. metre facil­i­ty at Saint Agnant in the Char­ente-Mar­itime depart­ment of France’s Nou­velle-Aquitaine Region. 

Inau­gu­rat­ed last Novem­ber, the loca­tion serves as the pri­ma­ry hub for pro­duc­tion and deliv­ery of the Cas­sio-fam­i­ly air­craft range, sup­port­ed by VoltAero’s on-site design, engi­neer­ing, flight test and admin­is­tra­tive depart­ments.  It has been built for the annu­al assem­bly of 150 Cas­sio air­planes, to be backed lat­er by addi­tion­al pro­duc­tion sites.

For more infor­ma­tion

(Top image: a full-scale Cas­sio 330 mock­up pro­duc­tion con­fig­u­ra­tion dis­played in Area B4 at PAS)

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