Voltaero’s Cassio 1 in flight in October 2020. Picture: VoltAero

Let’s zoom into France’s Atlantic coast, because an interesting development in the field of green aviation took place this week.

VoltAero, a French startup led by some of the people that took part in the Airbus E-Fan project some years ago, conducted a demonstration flight of its “Cassio 1” hybrid-electric aircraft.

This the experimental prototype is a pathfinder for what is expected to become a whole family of hybrid-electric aircraft for between 4 and 10 passengers.

One of the things that caught my attention, particularly in a field where sometimes is difficult to tell facts from fluff, is how well VoltAero’s team manages to explain their vision and technology.

Even the names chosen for this prospective family of aircraft reflect this straightforward approach:

Cassio 330 (330 kilowatts) 4-seater
Cassio 480 (480 kilowatts) 6-seater
Cassio 600 (600 kilowatts) 10-seater

Interestingly, each of these versions will have a scale of electric to thermal propulsion.

The new generation of VoltAero’s Cassio-family aircraft. Picture: VoltAero

The 4 seater will be primarily electric, with 3 x 60 kW electric engines and a 150 kW thermal engine, primarily as a range extender

The 6-seater will keep the 3 electric motors (60 kW each) but will mount an additional 150 kW thermal engine.

And the 10-seater will have a 300 kW electrical power plant, that will add to the two 150 kW thermal engines, so 600 kW in total, which VoltAero expects will enable it to perform a whole range of missions, including cargo and medevac.

This combination of electric and fuel-powered engines should give the most powerful of the Cassio aircraft family a range of around 800 miles or 3.5 hours up in the air (potentially even 5 hours, with the proper range extensions).

Even if these more advanced concept developments (which will feature a much more stylized, futuristic design than the Cassio 1) are still at the drawing board, VoltAero is confident they will be test-flying them by the end of 2021 and for it to be market-ready before the end of 2022.

You can see some footage of the Cassio 1 in action, plus a very detailed presentation about VoltAero’s vision and project in this video:

What’s more, after the initial testing over VoltAero’s site in Western France, an aerial “Tour de France” of sorts is planned for the Cassio 1 at the end of October, which will take it to 11 cities in 5 days.

VoltAero prepares to fly electric "Tour de France"