Mobilizing the Air Force’s Island of Misfit Toys

Founded in 2020 with the goal of decarbonizing aviation and bringing air transportation to every part of the world, Manassas, Virginia-based Electra.Aero, Inc. (Electra) comprises experts and collaborators formerly of Boeing, Airbus, MIT, Pilatus, Hondajet, and Aurora Flight Sciences.

On 26 January 2023, Electra announced it had been selected by the U.S. Air Force’s AFWERX innovation arm to develop a full-scale, pre-production, prototype electric Short Takeoff and Landing (eSTOL) aircraft. Funding for the project will be provided by a Strategic Funding Increase (STRATFI) award that will secure up to $85-million of mixed private investment, government funding, and matching Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) monies.

AFWERX is a United States Air Force program that sets out to foster a culture of innovation within the service. The initiative encompasses a number of programs supported by relatively modest funding, and is intended to attract entrepreneurs by circumventing characteristically suffocating military-governmental bureaucracies. The AFWERX program is partially based on the structure of Air Force Special Operations Command, and has been described as an "Island of misfit toys" on which solutions to challenges currently facing the USAF are devised through partnerships with private sector business entities—particularly technology start-ups.

Electra intends its eSTOL to amalgamate helicopter-like agility with performance and operating costs superior to those of comparably-sized fixed-wing aircraft. The machine will ostensibly be capable of carrying-out a wide variety of missions—including on-demand urban and regional air mobility, cargo hauling, executive transport, search and rescue, humanitarian assistance, and disaster response—from runways as short as one-hundred-meters  

The STRATFI award Electra has been granted secures investment partnerships by which the company will fund the rapid development, testing, and evaluation of a full-scale, pre-production, prototype eSTOL aircraft. Subject aircraft will subsequently be used by the USAF to validate its own eSTOL platform requirements and operational use cases. The undertaking will benefit significantly from the upcoming inaugural flight test of Electra’s two-seat, piloted, eSTOL technology demonstrator aircraft. If successful, the test flight will accelerate the maturation of Electra’s commercial, nine-passenger eSTOL aircraft and afford the Air Force opportunity to evaluate such.

Electra founder and CEO John S. Langford stated: “This STRATFI award reinforces the Air Force’s commitment to dual-use eSTOL technology as a solution for national security and other government missions, and validates Electra’s aircraft design and engineering work to date. The cost and risk advantages of eSTOL technology also make it a smart investment. We are honored to be chosen for this significant award and look forward to continuing our close collaboration with the Agility Prime team.”

Electra director of technology and business development Ben Marchionna added: “There is a significant gap in the Joint Force to provide logistics and sustainment to widely dispersed units across large contested geographical areas at the tactical edge. Electra’s eSTOL is ideally suited to serve as a small highly fuel-efficient airlifter that helps the Air Force execute its Agile Combat Employment doctrine and meet its operational energy goals to reduce aviation carbon emissions. Small, affordable, runway-independent eSTOL aircraft could also alleviate demand on larger, few-in-number, high performance fixed wing and rotorcraft platforms in a contested logistics environment. Our team is thrilled to help the Air Force solve this key national security priority.”

USAF Agility Prime Lead Lieutenant Colonel John “Wasp” Tekell set forth: “It’s vital that we ensure new advanced air mobility technologies with dual-use applications are developed and manufactured here at home in the U.S. Electra’s eSTOL technology has the potential to deliver valuable logistics and mobility capabilities to the Air Force. We value our partnership with Electra and look forward to supporting their continued development and future transition.”

To date, Electra has received orders for more than one-thousand eSTOL aircraft from commercial customers seeking to lower their operating costs, noise profiles, carbon emissions, and ground infrastructural requirements, thereby contemporaneously availing themselves of new markets and meeting the expectations of environmentally conscious passengers and investors.

FMI: www.electra.aero