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Universal Hydrogen first flew a regional plane from 40 passengers using fuel propulsion hydrogen.
The plane, apodado Lightning McClean, took off at 8:41 am PST from Grant County International Airport (KMWH) and flew for 15 minutes, reaching an altitude of 3.500 meters. The flight, carried out under a Special Certificate of Airworthiness of the FAA, it was the first in a two-year flight test campaign expected to culminate in 2025 with the entry into service of passengers of regional aircraft ATR 72 converted to run on hydrogen.
First regional airplane flight with hydrogen
Representatives of Connect Airlines and Amelia, American and European launch customers of the aircraft hydrogen, respectively, were present to witness the historic flight. The company has a rapidly growing order book, which currently amounts to a total of 247 aircraft conversions 16 clients all over the world, with a total of more than 1.000 Millions of dollars in back conversions and more than 2.000 million dollars in fuel services during the first ten years of operation.
In this first test flight, one of the aircraft's turbine engines was replaced with Universal Hydrogen's fuel cell electric megawatt class powerplant. The other remained a conventional engine for flight safety. The flight was piloted by Alex Kroll, an experienced former Air Force test pilot from USA and the company's main test pilot.
“During the second circuit over the airport, we are comfortable with the performance of the hydrogen engine, so we were able to go back on the fossil fuel turbine engine to show that the cruise ship is primarily based on hydrogen power.”, Kroll said. “The plane flew beautifully, the noise and vibrations of the fuel cell engine are significantly lower than those of the conventional turbine engine”.
The company's specialty engine is built around Plug Power's ProGen family of fuel cells., specially modified for aviation use. One of the unique aspects of the design is that the motor does not use a battery. (fuel cells drive the electric motor directly), drastically reducing weight and cost. The motor, a modified magni650 electric propulsion unit, and power electronics were supplied by Everett-based magniX. AeroTEC, based in seattle, assisted in engineering tasks, among them the design of the modified structure of the lighthouse, the design and integration of aircraft systems, as well as aircraft modifications and the installation of the powertrain of hydrogen universal in flight test aircraft, made in less than 12 months.
The test flight follows successful demonstrations in December 2022 of the modular logistics system of hydrogen of Universal Hydrogen carried out at the company's engineering center in Toulouse (France).
The company, backed by GE Aviation, Airbus Ventures, Toyota Ventures, JetBlue Ventures y American Airlines, as well as several of the largest producers of hydrogen green world and top-tier financial investors, plans to transition from regional to larger aircraft and deliver hydrogen fuel for other mobility applications using its modular logistics network.
About Universal Hydrogen
Universal Hydrogen is building a hydrogen logistics network to power the future of aviation, hoy. The hydrogen it is the ideal fuel for flight and will fuel the new era golden aviation, where planes run on renewable energy and emit nothing but water. The company's modular hydrogen pods pass through the existing charging network from production directly to aircraft anywhere in the world. Universal Hydrogen is also working to certify an engine conversion kit to retrofit existing regional jets to fly on hydrogen..
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