VerdeGo Aero’s VH-4T-RD Hybrid-Electric Powerplant Enters Low-Rate Production

VerdeGo Aero has announced its VH-4T-RD 400kW-class hybrid-elec­tric pow­er­plant has entered low-rate pro­duc­tion for devel­op­men­tal non-cer­ti­fied appli­ca­tions, includ­ing ground and flight test of hybrid-elec­tric air­craft.

With exten­sive ground test­ing and val­i­da­tion com­plete, VerdeGo has begun man­u­fac­tur­ing lim­it­ed quan­ti­ties of the VH-4T-RD for deliv­ery to cus­tomers for use in their ground test and flight test pro­grams pri­or to the avail­abil­i­ty of the VH-4T-415 pro­duc­tion vari­ant, which is intend­ed for high vol­ume pro­duc­tion and FAA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

The VH-4T-RD has accu­mu­lat­ed hun­dreds of hours of run­time, includ­ing 150 hours of dura­bil­i­ty test­ing
con­duct­ed for the US Air Force in accor­dance with FAA Part 33 dura­bil­i­ty test­ing require­ments.

This test­ing, con­duct­ed in VerdeGo’s Hybrid Sys­tems Inte­gra­tion Lab­o­ra­to­ry (HSIL), drove the VH-4T through a rep­re­sen­ta­tive eVTOL mis­sion pro­file while includ­ing a high-fre­quen­cy tur­bu­lence mod­el to val­i­date the
hybrid system’s response to rapid changes in load and its abil­i­ty to main­tain con­sis­tent per­for­mance under
dynam­ic flight con­di­tions.

In addi­tion to per­for­mance test­ing, VerdeGo has val­i­dat­ed sys­tem per­for­mance through exten­sive fault case test­ing to ensure safe­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty out­side of nor­mal oper­at­ing para­me­ters. These results demon­strate its reli­a­bil­i­ty and matu­ri­ty as a pro­duc­tion-ready pow­er­plant for use in cus­tomers’ research and devel­op­ment projects.

VerdeGo reports that the first cus­tomer units are sched­uled for deliv­ery in 2026, and leas­ing of VerdeGo-owned pow­er­plants has already com­menced for cus­tomers want­i­ng to accel­er­ate progress ahead of tak­ing deliv­ery of pur­chased VH-4T pow­er­plants. Cur­rent lead time for order­ing a VH-4T-RD is approx­i­mate­ly 9 to 12 months.

The VH-4T-RD is avail­able now, while the prod­uct-intent con­fig­u­ra­tion, VH-4T-415, is under devel­op­ment
and sched­uled for avail­abil­i­ty in 2027.