Universal Hydrogen, a company working on hydrogen logistics solutions for aviation, yesterday successfully completed the first flight of a Dash 8-300 that the company is using as a test platform for its hydrogen propulsion system.
The test was a milestone: it marked the operation of the largest hydrogen-powered aircraft to date.
The regional airplane, nicknamed the «Lightning McClean», took off from Grant County International Airport in Moses Lake, Washington, and stayed in the air for fifteen minutes before returning to the ground. It used a hydrogen fuel cell propulsion system to power one of its two engines. As is usual for such test flights, the other one was powered by traditional fuel.
The system does not use batteries: power is transmitted directly from the fuel cell to an electric engine. In addition to the resulting reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, this allows for a reduction in weight, further contributing to energy savings and overall operating cost.
Road to certification
The operation was made possible by a Special Certificate of Airworthiness granted by the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). It was the first in a series of tests that will run until 2025, when Universal Hydrogen plans to obtain the final certification and convert the first ATR 72 aircraft to enable it to operate powered by hydrogen.
Today, development plans are focused on the narrow-body regional aircraft market, where the most viable decarbonisation opportunities are found in the short term. However, they envisage later deployment of the technology on larger narrow-body aircraft, first as auxiliary power towards the end of this decade and then as a primary fuel in the mid-2030s.
The company currently has an order backlog of 247 conversions from 16 customers worldwide. According to Universal Hydrogen, this means a total of more than one billion dollars in conversions and more than two billion in fuel services over the first ten years.
See also: Universal Hydrogen is certified, will start flight testing
