Project description
New electric plane greener than a car
The Dufour Aerospace team gained hands-on experience with the design, construction and operation of manned electric aircraft with its first plane - the Hamilton aEro 1 aircraft. With EU funding of aEro, Dufour is working on its next project – aEro 2. This new plane will take off and land vertically like a helicopter thanks to its proven tilt-wing design, cruising at speeds of up to 320 km/h like a regular plane. The combination of electric propulsion and large propellers will ensure a much quieter noise profile compared to conventional helicopters and planes. aEro 2 will offer fast air transportation at the same cost per kilometre as a car but with a lower environmental impact.
Objective
From both a cost & environmental standpoint, the future of aviation is electric. Although the traditional aircraft fuel still provides higher energy densities than the batteries, an electric-airplane movement has begun.
More than 50 companies have announced passenger carrying vertical take-off & landing (VTOL) projects & the sector has never received so much coverage from mainstream media. There is a global race to deliver aircraft that will be able to service the air transportation needs of modern congested cities.
Yet, most of this development is done from scratch, with little regard to the already proven technologies. Moreover, aviation history shows that disruption is extremely difficult (both technologically & from the certification point of view) & that the most adopted solutions are usually modern revisits of reliable designs. This is the approach we are taking with our novel aircraft.
aEro2 is built on the success of our aEro 1 electric conventional take off & landing aerobatic plane. The eVTOL aEro2 will use a modular hybrid-electric power system. Three key features differentiate it from the competition. It is:
- built on proven aircraft designs;
- reuses all electric propulsion already validated on our TRL 9 aEro 1;
- Can take off/land both as a conventional fixed-wing aircraft & as a rotor craft.
Uniquely among the VTOL manufacturers, we chose a more reliable strategy to bringing an electric aircraft to reality. We built & tested aEro 1—a fully electric conventional airplane using a retrofitted Silence Twister. We validated that all systems work as expected in 60+ hours of flight time. Now we are building aEro 2—the proper VTOL. aEro 2 is a 500kg 2-seater aircraft that can travel at 320km/h up to 800km, land and take off vertically and produces very low noise. We are planning to address 3 market segments in aerobatics, pilot training & finally urban air transportation, reaching €15m in revenues & 50 FTEs by 2023.
Fields of science
- humanitieshistory and archaeologyhistory
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesenvironmental sciencespollution
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringaerospace engineeringaircraftrotorcraft
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuels
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
3930 VISP
Switzerland
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.