Etihad's new A350 business class, hydrogen jets & more (The Allplane Newsletter #87)

What news and stories did this week bring about?

Electric Aviation

Daher is joining the electric race in cooperation with Airbus and Safran. The French aircraft maker is starting a 18-24 month, 100-flight test programme for its EcoPulse electric aircraft. LINK.

VoltAero is taking its Cassio 1 demonstrator to the Netherlands for a demo tour. The hybrid-electric aircraft is going to be based at Eindhoven airport during this journey, which is part of the Power Up initiative, a project supported by 4 Dutch airports plus Schiphol Group to promote sustainable aviation. LINK.

Advanced Air Mobility

Joby got FAA Part 135 Certification. What does this mean? Well, they can now operate charter services (what is needed for air taxi operations). Apparently they received it a bit earlier than expected, since the tentative time horizon was end of 2022. LINK.

Volocopter signed an agreement with Jetex, a private jet operator. Who and how (what business model?) is going to operate eVTOLs is one of the open questions of this industry. LINK.

Sustainable Aviation Fuel

Neste has made the first delivery of SAF to a foreign airline in Japan. Through its local partner ITOCHU, Neste refuelled an Etihad Airways flight. LINK.

Hydrogen

ZeroAvia is going to work with Mitsubishi’s MHI RJ Aviation Group (MHIRJ), which not long ago acquired Bombardier’s regional jet business, in order to retrofit CRJ aircraft with its hydrogen-powered powertrain (CRJ100 to start with). Pretty exciting! Great reporting by Tom Patterson on Flying Mag.

Airbus opened one of its Zero Emission Development Centres (ZEDC) in Filton, England. At these facilities it is going to research cryogenic storage systems for hydrogen. One of the main issues with hydrogen is the volume it takes, particularly in gas form, but to liquify it, you need to keep it in super low (-235 C) temperatures. LINK.

Other interesting stuff

Bombardier presented its EcoJet project at EBACE, a futuristic executive jet concept (vaguely reminiscent, in appearance, to the Boeing blended wing concept!) that would create 50% less emissions through aerodynamic and propulsion enhancements. LINK.

NASA, Boeing and Alaska Airlines did some tests on a Boeing 737 MAX-9, on the ground using 100% SAF, and they are now publishing the results. LINK.

16 sustainable aviation startups from around the world pitched at Embraer Energia’s “Start up Day”. The Brazilian firm aims to organize more of these sessions. If interested, you can apply through this LINK.

What else in aviation?

I had the chance to go on a special tour of Etihad’s brand new A350-1000, amazing aircraft and mind-blowing passenger experience. Check out my flight review of Etihad’s business class on the A350. Check it out here!

Airbus Helicopters apparently sold out the whole ACH130 Aston Martin limited edition series and it is now going to extend it. It appears that there is lots and lots of money around! LINK.

Airbus has set up a creative studio in Toulouse for the TwoTwenty programme. Would be customers would be able to best customize the interiors of this business jet, which is essentially the executive aviation derivative of the A220 ACJ. LINK.