Kroll spoke to the confidence achieved during flight: “During the second circuit over the airport, we were comfortable with the performance of the hydrogen powertrain, so we were able to throttle back the fossil fuel turbine engine to demonstrate cruise principally on hydrogen power. The airplane handled beautifully, and the noise and vibrations from the fuel cell powertrain are significantly lower than from the conventional turbine engine.”
Connect has secured the first US order to convert 75 ATR 72-600 planes to Universal Hydrogen powertrains with the purchase rights for 25 more. With the first successful flight complete, Universal Hydrogen kicks off a two-year testing program that is expected to enable full certification for hydrogen electric passenger flights using the aforementioned ATR 72 planes by 2025. The flight also marks the Dash-300 flying test bed as the largest hydrogen electric plane to take flight, paving the way for more hydrogen electric conversions of existing aircraft. You can watch a video of the flight on YouTube or embedded in Electrek’s article.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.