Assembling luxury Swiss watches mid-flight, mini-blimps & more (The Allplane Newsletter #139)
Picture: SWISS
Here’s a recap of some of the most interesting things that happened in aviation over the last few days, with, as always, a very strong focus on the dynamic field of sustainable aviation.
Electric Aviation
Irelandia, the airline-investing firm backed by the Ryan family (yes, that Ryan(air)!) is said to be preparing the launch of an electric airline in Europe by 2025 (to carry cargo only, at least for now)
Advanced Air Mobility
Beta Aerospace landed one of its Alia eCTOL aircraft at Andrews Air Force Base, near Washington DC while on its way to Florida, where it is going to be evaluated at Eglin Air Force base. The US military is looking at advanced air mobility with growing interest!
Archer has secured $65M of funding for its under-construction factory in Covington, Georgia. READ.
And also Archer presented its partnership with prominent Abu Dhabi investors to make of the UAE the first spot to see Midnight regular air operations. READ.
Hyunday and Honeywell will develop a scalable remote-control system for the Supernal eVTOLs. Being able to remove the pilot from the equation (at least partly) will be key to bring down the costs of advanced air mobility travel.
Lilium announced it’s got a commercial partner for the US market, with Texas as the first prospective market for the $10M Lilium Jet. READ.
REGENT Craft is on a roll! Just days after securing a $60M funding round, it also closed a deal with Surf Air to launch Seaglider operations out of Miami and announced a deal with the US military to test defense applications of this ground-effect vehicle.
Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF)
Boeing and NASA are going to use an United Airlines Boeing 737-10 MAX and a trailing DC-8 to conduct SAF research.
Embraer has tested its Phenom 300E and Praetor 600 executive jets using 100% SAF (only one of the engines was running entirely on SAF during the tests).
Rolls-Royce has also conducted 100% SAF tests successfully on its Pearl 15 and Pearl 10X engines for executive jets.
LanzaJet has rebranded (to learn more about this SAF company, you can check this episode of the podcast, with its CEO, Jimmy Samartzis).
Other sustainable aviation news
A whole bunch of European aviation industry bodies have called for further streamlining of air traffic management procedures in order to squeeze some more efficiency and environmental gains. You can read the declaration here.
Roland Berger, a consultancy firm that has been quite active from early on in the sustainable aviation sector, is optimistic about the perspectives for current turboprop models to adapt to greener propulsion technologies.
Aerovy, a startup linked to Purdue University, has raised $800k to develop software solutions that let advanced air mobility operator better manage electricity flows at charging locations. READ.
Interesting story on CNN about Cloudline, a South African startup that is developing mini-blimps, that is a small-scale airship 18m long and with a new weight of 2-3kg!
Europe’s Clean Aviation program published a summary of the different projects it is backing at the moment. You can check them out here.
A summary of how Direct Air Carbon Capture (DACC) works and how the aviation industry is getting involved, with video comment by Anna Stukas, VP Business Development and Carbon Engineering, one of the leading players in DACC.
What else in aviation?
An Executive Spotlight interview with Michael Swiatek, Chief Strategy Officer at Abra Group (the holding company of Avianca and GOL) and one of the most inspiring characters I’ve come across in the industry lately. READ.
Finnair has partnered with Finnish fashion brand Makia as part of its 100th anniversary celebrations program. This clothing collection is said to be designed with the needs of air travellers in mind (not the first time design-conscious Finnair collaborates with fashion brands!). +
A member of SWISS crew assembled a luxury watch during a transatlatinc flight!
Take a video tour of the Gulfstream G700 and G500 executive jets.
Star Alliance inaugurate a swanky new lounge at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport.
Air Nostrum and CityJet finally completed their merger (had been in the works since 2018!), creating Europe’s largest independent regional airline. READ.