Sustainable Aviation: Eviation and magniX at EBACE 2022

Architecting the Future of Aerospace
For the 13,000 aerospace industry insiders who converged on Geneva, Switzerland between 23 and 26 May, this year’s European Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition (EBACE) was a welcome opportunity to reflect on the future of aviation.

The first EBACE to be held since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the event focused on sustainability as a matter of urgency. The airline industry is responsible for 2.5% of carbon emissions, a proportion that is predicted to rise significantly. It is becoming ever clearer that the industry requires major disruption if it is to decarbonise effectively without sacrificing the valuable social and economic benefits of affordable, reliable air travel.

Two Clermont companies, magniX and Eviation, were on hand to show their solutions to safeguard a new era of human connectivity by ushering in the electric age of aviation.

magniX Making Headlines at EBACE
EBACE marked the tradeshow debut of the magni650 Electric Propulsion Unit (EPU). The electric engine took pride of place at the heart of a stunning new magniX stand, sitting beneath a display of branded concentric rings that gave the company a powerful presence at the centre of the show floor. The motor and accompanying video of its development and testing attracted a tremendous response from attendees, many of whom had been following the company’s progress in recent years.

On 23 May, the first day of the event, magniX also announced the appointment of new Chief Executive Officer Nuno Taborda. He will join the company on June 1, and comes with more than two decades of experience driving business performance and delivering new technologies from proof-of-concept through certification, entry-into-service and scaled production.

Taborda, most recently Senior Vice-President of Production Programs at Rolls-Royce, has major ambitions for magniX to become a world-scale business responsible for leading the industry and shaping culture. “We are on the cusp of the biggest technological leap aviation has seen since the development of the gas turbine by Sir Frank Whittle,” he said. “It is exciting to see magniX leading the way with its advanced technology and innovation.”

Building a Better World Through the Power of Innovation
magniX is enjoying an especially exciting chapter in its business story. The company is currently preparing for the first flight of an all-electric retrofitted Robinson R44 helicopter which is now scheduled to be just weeks away.

The project began with Dr Martine Rothblatt, founder, CEO and Chairman of United Therapeutics. Dr Rothblatt began the company in 1996 after her daughter was diagnosed with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Her dream, and that of magniX, is that electric helicopters will help build a better world by sustainably, affordably, and effectively transforming the way in which transplant organs are transported to hospitals.

In the build-up to EBACE, magniX was awarded a significant contract by America’s space agency, NASA, to work on its Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration programme. It had also signed an agreement with SurfAir Mobility, a Los Angeles-based company accelerating the adoption of green aviation, to work on electrifying Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft. magniX also has a contract with Universal Hydrogen to develop a hydrogen-powered version of the Dash 8 aircraft, as well as ongoing work with Canadian airline Harbour Air to gain regulator approval for their electrified version of the de Havilland Beaver.

“magniX is leading the industry in electric propulsion,” magniX’s Chief Technology Officer, Riona Armesmith, said. “We are flying by more platforms and working with more customers than really anyone else.”

In an industry dominated by giants, making its presence felt in the marketplace is an epic achievement.

Eviation Gives Delegates a Glimpse of the Future
magniX is also working with another Clermont company, Eviation, which has designed from scratch an airplane to run fully on batteries, called Alice.

At EBACE, Eviation was able to show off its new virtual showroom alongside a striking model of the Alice and footage of recent runway tests. The virtual showroom, displayed on futuristic touch screens around the booth, gave potential customers the chance to explore the airplane’s elegant interiors, see for themselves the radical simplicity of its industry-leading fly-by-wire system, and examine crucial size and performance statistics.

President and Interim CEO Gregory Davis was among the EBACE speakers promoting sustainable aviation, making a powerful case for innovating ways of deploying batteries to power electrified flight, pointing out that alternatives remain either highly expensive – such as Sustainable Aviation Fuel – or currently unproven – such as hydrogen.

The vision of Alice is not just of a cleaner world, but of one that is better connected. The aircraft’s lower operating costs promise to make middle-mile routes that are currently economically unviable into commercially successfully options. By connecting smaller urban centres with major cities, the Alice offers a powerful multiplier effect; improving connectivity, benefiting business, and reshaping the future of commuter travel.

Leading Industry, Shaping Culture
magniX and Eviation are respectively innovating to build the heart and body of the electric aircraft of the future, to reshape the culture of air travel so it is cleaner, cheaper and more efficient. Fresh from EBACE, both companies will be at the Farnborough Air Show in July, to spark the imagination of aviation professionals from around the world again.

By Harry Hodges

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