Every Bulletin story and press release covering De Havilland Dash 8 Series, newest first.
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Certification-grade modules have entered active flight-test integration, reinforcing the company's readiness to support future hybrid-electric aircraft programmes.
EASA-supervised test campaign confirms ability to contain worst-case failures, enabling scalable commercialisation of electric aircraft propulsion systems.
Pratt & Whitney Canada and AeroTEC have moved forward with their RTX demonstrator by testing propulsion and battery performance in Quebec.
The two companies will work to integrate high voltage electrical systems on an experimental aircraft, and target flight testing to begin in 2024.
During the final leg to Mojave the Dash-8's hydrogen fuel cell powertrain was used throughout, accruing over 180nm, and a flight time of over one hour - the longest by a hydrogen fuel cell powertrain to date.
The specially designed Hartzell prop is smaller than the standard Dash 8 standard, but provided thrust to keep the aircraft airborne when the other jet fuel powered turbine engine was throttled back during first flight.
In this first test flight, one of the aircraft's turbine engines was replaced with Universal Hydrogen's fuel cell-electric, megawatt-class powertrain. The other remained a conventional engine for safety of flight.
The Dash 8-300 will be the largest hydrogen fuel cell-powered aircraft to fly, and second as a hydrogen-powered aircraft only to the Tupolev Tu-155 tested in 1988 with one jet engine converted to burn hydrogen.
Successfully demonstrated hybrid-electric technology could be implemented in a range of novel applications, including high speed eVTOL, unmanned aerial vehicles, and small to medium sized commercial aircraft.
DHC plans to offer the ZA2000 electric powertrain both as an in-line and retrofit option for the Dash 8-400. The power plant should be running on the ground by the end of 2022.
The companies believe strongly that the Dash 8 P-4 will prove to be a market leading MPA and ISR solution. Based on the Dash 8-400, the concept has already attracted interest from Malaysia.
The Dash 8's site lease at Downsview ends this year, so an alternative facility will be required if production is to resume after the pandemic downturn passes. 500 employees are affected by the hiatus.
