Company’s ES-30 Moves Towards Electrifying Regional Air Travel

Heart Aerospace, a Swedish aircraft manufacturer, unveiled the first full-scale demonstrator of its ES-30 model on September 12. The hybrid-electric airplane is a part of the company’s work towards making air travel more sustainable.

“Our industry is approaching a 30-year innovation cycle, and we have less than 25 years to decarbonize aviation. We need to develop new methods to get net zero aerospace technologies to market faster,” stated Anders Forslund, co-founder and CEO of Heart Aerospace. “It is a testament to the ingenuity and dedication of our team that we’re able to roll out a 30-seat aircraft demonstrator with a brand-new propulsion system…in less than two years."

The ES-30 is a hybrid-electric airplane meant to support a standard 30-passenger capacity. It is intended for short-haul regional flights with an electric range of 200 km and an extended hybrid range of up to 400 km.

Its first full-scale demonstrator, dubbed Heart Experimental 1 or X1, was primarily built in Heart’s Gothenburg facilities. It will be used for ground-based testing with a spotlight on charging, taxiing, and turnaround operations. Heart will also run hardware tests on and off the aircraft to oversee the performance of its critical systems before it leaves the ground.

The Heart X1 is slated to take its first fully electric flight in the second quarter of 2025.

Moving forward, Heart Aerospace will shift its focus to perfecting the ES-30’s manufacturing process and building a pre-production prototype. This version, the Heart X2, is intended to “mature the design and production methods” of the ES-30 based on data from X1 tests. It is scheduled for flight in 2026.

“Developing innovative net zero aerospace technologies demands a revolution in product development and manufacturing, much like what we’ve witnessed in the automotive and space industries,” said Ben Stabler, Chief Technology Officer at Heart Aerospace.

Heart aims to achieve type certification of the ES-30 by 2030.

FMI: www.heartaerospace.com