Whisper Aero and Electric Power Systems partner to enable powertrains for Regional Air Mobility

Whis­per Aero is com­bin­ing its next-gen­er­a­tion thrusters with Elec­tric Pow­er Sys­tems’ EPiCTM Ener­gy and EPiC Pow­er bat­ter­ies for cer­ti­fi­able pow­er­trains on Part 23 air­craft in the near-term.

The announce­ment made yes­ter­day (Tues­day) at the UP.Summit also marks a growth in Whisper’s ReCon­necTN coali­tion, which is fast-for­ward­ing region­al air mobil­i­ty in the vol­un­teer state. Iron bird tests and even­tu­al elec­tric flights will help inform Ten­nessee mobil­i­ty ini­tia­tives in the south­east­ern Unit­ed States.

Whis­per CEO, Mark Moore, said, “We’re excit­ed to part­ner with EPS on pow­er­train solu­tions for hybrid-elec­tric retro­fits and clean sheet designs. Their progress on aero­space-grade, cer­ti­fi­able bat­ter­ies makes them a prag­mat­ic choice for near-term Part 23 air­craft.”

Since its ear­li­est days, Whis­per has been inno­vat­ing high blade count elec­tric duct­ed fans with sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er noise, high­er per­for­mance, and improved safe­ty. Enabling inno­va­tions in elec­tric motors have opened up a new design space that decou­ples pow­er and thrust, typ­i­cal­ly inte­grat­ed in a tur­bo­prop or tur­bo­jet.

No longer lim­it­ed by this cou­pling, Whis­per has been able to max­i­mize the effi­cien­cy of its fans at low­er fan pres­sure ratios for high­er speed flight. Recent tests have proven this to be the case with its larg­er 80 lbf thrust propul­sor pro­to­types.

This has allowed Whis­per time to search for ide­al pow­er­train part­ners to pro­vide pow­er and ener­gy that work best with its propul­sion sys­tems.

EPS is well posi­tioned to meet Whisper’s bat­tery needs. Since 2017, the team has made strides in avi­a­tion-grade bat­ter­ies like the ener­gy stor­age sys­tem for NASA’s X‑57 Maxwell demon­stra­tor.

Their EPiC 1.0 is known for reli­ably pow­er­ing vehi­cles like the Dia­mond eDA40, slat­ed for EASA/FAA Part 23 cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. EPS is now nav­i­gat­ing the path­way towards an STC of their bat­tery packs through dis­cus­sions with EASA and FAA to ensure safe, test­ed, high-per­for­mance solu­tions across mul­ti­ple plat­forms.

Nathan Mil­le­cam, EPS CEO, said: “We are excit­ed to part­ner with Whis­per Aero in devel­op­ing mod­u­lar and scal­able pow­er­trains to elec­tri­fy aero­space and defense.

“Whis­per Aero’s duct­ed fans are an ide­al fit for the mod­u­lar, scal­able, and upgrade­able pow­er sys­tems we deploy today. Togeth­er, we can fur­ther expand the range of elec­tric vehi­cles with­out hav­ing to com­pro­mise on air speed or noise pol­lu­tion.”

EPiC 2.0, pow­er­ing 50 per cent more air­time on a sin­gle charge, is a drop-in replace­ment for the EPiC 1.0 TSO and can form the basis for new Whis­per- enabled pow­er­trains.

The joint Whis­per and EPS team have begun the mat­u­ra­tion of a retro­fit Part 23 con­cept enabled by Whisper’s 80 lbf eQ250 propul­sors, Whisper’s Jet­FoilTM inte­gra­tion, and EPS EPiC ener­gy stor­age sys­tems.

The team has already com­plet­ed ini­tial com­pat­i­bil­i­ty tests and gave a demon of a Whis­per propul­sor cou­pled to a mobile EPS bat­tery sys­tem at UP.SUMMIT 2024.

Over the com­ing months, the team will be expand­ing these efforts to include larg­er arrays of Whisper’s propul­sors with
bat­ter­ies that can be com­bined with a high volt­age bus and a tur­bo­gen­er­a­tor in a flight­wor­thy hybrid elec­tric demon­stra­tor.

Recent team addi­tions like Whisper’s Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Strate­gic Advi­sor, Bri­an Klin­ka, will help accel­er­ate the team’s efforts towards air­wor­thi­ness for com­mer­cial and DoD appli­ca­tions.