VoltAero Begins Certification Testing “of Electric-Hybrid Powertrain for Cassio 330 Aircraft”

VoltAero announced last week it has start­ed cer­ti­fi­ca­tion test­ing of its elec­tric-hybrid pow­er­train for the company’s Cas­sio 330 five-seat ver­sion air­craft, reports a press release. The ground-based test bench runs of Cas­sio 330’s pow­er­train are under­way at the Bay­onne, France facil­i­ty of AKIRA Tech­nolo­gies. 

The release explains, “Installed on a ground-based test bench, this pow­er­train inte­grates the key ele­ments for series pro­duc­tion Cas­sio 330s: Safran Elec­tri­cal & Power’s ENGINeUS™ 100 smart elec­tric motor; and Kawasaki’s four-cylin­der high-per­for­mance ther­mal engine derived from the icon­ic Nin­ja® motor­cy­cle.”

It con­tin­ues, “The Cas­sio 330’s pow­er­train has a com­bined elec­tric-hybrid pow­er of 330 kilo­watts, with 180 kilo­watts deliv­ered by the ENGINeUS™ 100 elec­tric motor and 150 kilo­watts pro­vid­ed by the Kawasa­ki ther­mal engine.”

Jean Bot­ti, VoltAero’s CEO and CTO, com­ment­ed, “Full-scale pow­er­train cer­ti­fi­ca­tion test­ing for our Cas­sio 330 marks anoth­er impor­tant step in VoltAero’s com­mit­ment to pro­duce a new-gen­er­a­tion elec­tric-hybrid air­craft fam­i­ly, bring­ing togeth­er our pro­pri­etary pow­er­train with an air­frame that is opti­mized for aero­dy­nam­ic and oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy.”  

Bot­ti point­ed out the VoltAero’s over­all archi­tec­ture for the 330 pow­er­train has been val­i­dat­ed already after exten­sive flight test­ing with the company’s Cas­sio S test­bed air­plane, equipped with a pow­er­train ver­sion rat­ed at 600 kilo­watts, viewed as the most pow­er­ful elec­tric-hybrid sys­tem of its type fly­ing today.

The elec­tric-hybrid pow­er­train for VoltAero’s Cas­sio 330 air­craft is shown on the test­bench

Cas­sio S has per­formed more than 230 flights since Octo­ber 2020, sur­pass­ing the com­bined 170-flight-hour mark while cov­er­ing 15,000 kilo­me­tres and vis­it­ing 40-plus air­ports.

The release goes on, “The VoltAero par­al­lel elec­tric-hybrid propul­sion con­cept for Cas­sio is unique, with the air­craft using the elec­tric motor in its aft fuse­lage-mount­ed propul­sion unit for all-elec­tric pow­er dur­ing taxi, take­off, pri­ma­ry flight (if the dis­tance trav­eled is less than 150 km) and land­ing.” 

Adding, “The hybrid fea­ture – with the inter­nal com­bus­tion engine inte­grat­ed in the pow­er­train – comes into play as a range exten­der, recharg­ing the bat­ter­ies while in flight. Addi­tion­al­ly, this hybrid ele­ment serves as a back­up in the event of a prob­lem with the elec­tric propul­sion, ensur­ing true fail-safe func­tion­al­i­ty.”

Via this inte­gra­tion, Cas­sio can deliv­er a high­er per­for­mance as com­pared to the cur­rent com­pe­ti­tion, while pro­vid­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er oper­a­tional costs.

Jean Bot­ti

Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for the Cas­sio 330 is aimed for late 2025 and will be fol­lowed by the six-seat Cas­sio 480 with a com­bined elec­tric-hybrid propul­sion pow­er of 480 kilo­watts, and then the Cas­sio 600, sized at a 10/12-seat capac­i­ty with elec­tric-hybrid propul­sion pow­er of 600 kilo­watts.

The var­i­ous air­craft uses will include region­al com­mer­cial oper­a­tors; air taxi/charter com­pa­nies; pri­vate own­ers; as well as in util­i­ty-cat­e­go­ry ser­vice for car­go, postal deliv­ery and med­ical evac­u­a­tion (Mede­vac) appli­ca­tions.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.voltaero.aero/

(Top image: VoltAero Cas­sio 330 Air­craft)

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