Hydrogen-powered airships, sustainability communications & more (The Allplane Newsletter #152)
There’s a new episode of the podcast!
After working for a number of very well-known airlines, Elizabeth Maclean and Mike Evans founded Herdwick Communications.
With Elizabeth and Mike we talk about what airlines are doing (an what they aren’t) to communicate in the field of sustainability, an increasingly pressing issue for the industry. We talk about greenwashing, greenhushing and much more….LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE!
Sustainable Aviation News
What’s new this week in the sustainable aviation scene? Let’s have a look…
Electric Aviation
Scandinavian Seaplanes, a Norwegian seaplane operator, plans to retrofit its entire 6-aircraft fleet with Dovetail’s powertrain.
Btw, here is a video of Dovetail’s hydrogen-electric motor in action. WATCH (and listen!)
The General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) has issued a set of policy recommendations to steer the EU’s support of the electric aviation sector. You can read this white paper here.
Air New Zealand has announced the two airports that will first see electric aircraft service within the framework of its Mission Next Gen Aircraft program. The aircraft will be a Beta Technologies ALIA ESTOL. READ.
Advanced Air mobility
Lilium started producing battery packs for its first crewed test flights. READ.
And, also Lilium, featured in a CNBC video piece. WATCH.
And Yahoo!Finance has produced a similar piece about Joby Aviation, visiting their assembly line in California. WATCH
A visual overview of the different ownership models for vertiports.
The era of the personal eVTOL is (almost) here. A look at Doroni Aerospace and AIR.
Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF)
Air New Zealand is sourcing 9 million liters of SAF from Neste. This is the largest single SAF purchase to date outside Europe or the US and will be delivered between April and November this year. Surpised though that the fuel is going to be produced at Neste’s new singpaore refinery and then shipped across the Pacific for delivery at Los Angeles, rather than fuelling Air New Zealand’s planes locally. I guess there are operational or tax reasons at play (or both). READ.
Boeing has purchased 9.4 million gallons of SAF for its own operations. The fuel is going to be produced by Neste and World Energy. READ.
The Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA) announced that a group twenty companies have committed to buying $200 million worth of SAF certificates over the next 5 years. By using SAF certificates, the companies in question do not need to physically use the SAF themselves, but make sure that money goes into financing the global “SAF pool” that someone in the world will be using. READ.
Hydrogen Aviation
GKN Aerospace reportedly getting close to a 1MW experimental hydrogen-electric powertrain (h/t Paul Perera).
French startup HyLight has raised $4 million to continue developing a hydrogen-powered airship. The main purpose of this small scale is the inspection of power lines, pipelines and infrastructure.
These are tasks that require long endurance, something that is expensive to do with helicopters and impractical with battery-powered drones (because of limited range). So, a hydrogen-powered airship can hover long time and also the volume of hydrogen tanks is less of a problem than in a conventional aircraft. READ.
What else in aviation?
Norse Atlantic Airways launched a new route (starting in October) between London Gatwick and Cape Town. You can check our Norse Atlantic Airways Premium Class review here.