During this period a new Use Case (UERA – Ultra Efficient Regional Aircraft) within the Hybrid Electric Regional thrust started to gain more importance, to which the TheMa4HERA consortium decided to pro-actively align and contribute. Some reviews were performed to better understand the concept and its needs in terms of thermal management, as well as identify the technologies potentially contributing to it.In order to further strengthen the collaboration, it was decided to invite the OEM developing this new use case to join the TheMa4HERA consortium.
Another challenge was to identify and onboard new UK Partners to take over the scope of bankrupted Partner Reaction Engines. This was also successfully achieved, with the new Partners formally onboarded at the end of Q2 2025 as part of the Grant Amendment, their activities having started at risk earlier than that in order to meet the compressed schedule.
Also part of the Grant Amendment, 2 distinct Fuel Cell cooling activities were launched, hence aligned to project HERA Use Case B.
Following some reviews gathering all the relevant stakeholders, M4 - Cabin Air Compressor (CAC) TRL4 was declared passed in August 2024.
The definition of the prototypes to be delivered and integrated to the various benches and demonstrators is well underway, along with their manufacturing. For the systems cooling demonstrator for instance, the convergence on technical as well as schedule aspects progressed, and a 3-steps strategy for the test set-up in Liebherr premises defined.
Several studies related to the SMR less-bleed architecture were launched. Maintaining those activities despite the bleed less architecture of the original HERA Use Case A and B proved useful since UERA could potentially benefit from that work (UERA having a less-bleed architecture)
Another emphasis has been to disseminate results. The single largest dissemination event was the “Thermal Management” session organized at EASN 2024 in Thessaloniki, Greece, during which several Consortium Partners presented their activities. Since the session proved successful, EASN organizers also offered a similar opportunity for EASN 2025 in Madrid, Spain, and for which many more abstracts were received.
