A hydrogen-powered aircraft has been granted a permit to fly by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) following a testing programme.
Since a prototype hydrogen-electric powertrain has been mounted onto a Dornier 228 aircraft by ZeroAvia, the company may now start the first test flights of its 600kW hydrogen-electric powertrain.
ZeroAvia's hydrogen-electric engine, which powers the propellor on the left wing, has been retrofitted into the 19-seat twin-engine aircraft in an engineering testbed configuration. It works in tandem with a single Honeywell TPE-331 stock engine on the right to provide redundancy in the event of a problem.
When test flights begin in January, the Dornier 228 testbed is expected to become “the largest aircraft to ever fly using a hydrogen-electric powertrain,” ZeroAvia said.
The aviation industry has a notoriously tough time reducing carbon emissions, and many environmentalists and scientists contend that in order to achieve net-zero CO2 emissions by the year 2050, travel must be reduced.
Increasing the percentage of fuel obtained sustainably is the current focus of the majority of efforts to cut emissions, even though sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is still mostly out of reach and prohibitively expensive.
As long as the hydrogen is produced by electrolysis driven by a renewable source rather than mined from fossil fuels, flying in hydrogen-powered aircraft is one option to attain zero carbon emissions. Currently, barely 1% of the hydrogen produced worldwide qualifies as being carbon-free.
In comparison to the architecture it used for its 6-seat prototype in 2020, ZeroAvia claimed it has worked with the CAA to satisfy a more demanding set of standards for this testing program.
The CEO of ZeroAvia, Val Miftakhov, stated: "As we build a zero-emission aviation propulsion system that will be the most affordable and environmentally friendly way to reduce the industry's climate impact, earning our complete Part 21 permission to fly with the CAA is a significant milestone.
By proving through flying that real zero-emission commercial flight is far closer than many imagine, we're going to start 2023 off right.
By the end of 2023, it will open the door for the ZA600, a commercially viable hydrogen powertrain.
According to ZeroAvia, the first commercial routes for aircraft with 9 to 19 seats that are only powered by hydrogen might start-up by 2025.
The company presently links with seven aircraft manufacturers and has pre-orders for over 1,500 engines.
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