Startup Clearwings and student team Falcon from Eindhoven University of Technology carried out a public test-taxi ride with an all-electric Cessna 150 at Kempen Airport last week.
Clearwings is a startup born out of Falcon Electric Aviation. The startup was co-founded by Kshitij Dadhekar, still active in the student team, and associate Kyle Strickland. The company works on technology that allows conventional aircraft to be powered by electric propulsion. This process is also known as retrofitting.
Cesna 150 with electric propulsion
The Falcon student team works closely with Clearwings. Among other things, it contributes to technological development and also plays a role in the test phase. So this week, the parties carried out a public test taxi ride with a Cesna 150, which is equipped with an electric drive system.
The parties speak of an important and necessary step in the certification of their solution. NXP is the main sponsor of Falcon. The tech company's products include systems for energy-efficient network communication, accurate battery management, safe switching of high-voltage systems and microcontrollers with built-in error detection.
Netherlands has many small planes
That Clearwings and Falcon are conducting the test with a Cesna 150 is no coincidence; they report that ninety per cent of aircraft registered in the Netherlands are smaller aircraft like the Cesna 150. With their technology, the parties aim to offer a sustainable and affordable way to make these aircraft more sustainable.
"With this method, you can make aircraft sustainable much faster than if you had to design and build completely new aircraft," Dadhekar explains. "That is of course also an option, but it is a great opportunity to first convert the existing fleet, which in this way can last for years to come."
Electric motor, battery, controls and wiring
Clearwings and Falcon's solution consists of a package consisting of an electric motor
battery, controls and wiring. The electric drive is about as heavy as a conventional engine. Aviation maintenance technicians can install the package themselves, which should lower the barrier to retrofit.
Maarten Steinbuch, professor of systems and control engineering at TU/e, sees retrofitting as an important first step towards electrification of aviation. Steinbuch: "This is also how it started in the automotive industry. It takes an awful lot of time to design and certify completely new aircraft, this way we will be able to fly cleaner and quieter much faster. I expect a lot of development here in the next ten years, starting with small aircraft and then larger ones."
Test flight scheduled for end of this year
Clearwings plans to conduct its first electric test flight from Kempen Airport in December 2025. If this test goes well, it and Falcon intend to scale up to aircraft that can accommodate up to 20 passengers. This will involve aircraft with a range of up to 500 kilometres.
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Pictured from left to right: Aurèle Caucheteux, Ovidiu Chelariu, Marian Catrinescu, Alfredo Cana Grisolía and Alexander Boynov and the Falcon team (image: Rutger van Loo)
