ANN’s Rex Alexander spoke with Gregory Blatt, co-founder of H55, at the 2025 EAA AirVenture Air Show and Fly-in in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
Blatt first recapped the company’s background, which is that he and the two other co-founders were members of the Solar Impulse Project team. That was an electric airplane that completed the first solar-powered flight around the world in 2017. The flight covered 50,000 km with one person onboard and during that groundbreaking achievement, the aircraft’s longest solar flight lasted 5 days and 5 nights, leading to the company’s name, H55.
H55 is all about designing, building, and producing certified electric propulsion systems. That means the powertrain– the motor, propeller, inverter, power distribution unit, battery management unit, and energy storage. So there’s energy on one side and power on the other, and the system revolves around the hardware and software that enables them to interact.
The company’s goal is to be the first company to have a certified STC for an electric propulsion system in Europe in early 2026 and the following year in the U.S.
When Blatt was asked about the results of the tour H55 has been on this year, with included flights being conducted at extremely high temperatures and density altitudes, he said, “Phenomenal.” They were on an 8-state tour since April, and it was interesting with the different types of environments they flew in. In Las Vegas they flew at 115 degrees Fahrenheit, and the flight schools who witnessed the flights were amazed, asking “How do you do this because we can’t do this.”
At Centennial Airport outside Denver, one of the busiest general aviation airports in the country and one of the highest, they performed density altitude testing flights at 9,500 feet and the airplane still had a 500 fpm climb rate. Altogether, H55 did sound testing, altitude testing, and temperature testing, and in every case, there was no degradation of airplane performance, no degradation of the batteries.
H55 is looking at the training market, and comparing the airplane’s operation in Europe and the U.S., in Europe the total endurance time is 70 minutes, but Europe requires a shorter reserve time of just 10 minutes, so the result is 60 minutes of flying time.
In contrast, by the time the U.S. version is available, the aircraft will have a new generation of battery cells that will have a 90 minute duration. Blatt emphasized the important point that with the electric airplane, there are no lengthy procedures for startup and engine warmup – you get into their airplane and fly right away.
The recharge time for the airplane has drastically improved in the 6 years of the company’s existence. What used to be an hour and a half charge per hour of flight time is now about 1 to 1. The company’s goal is to get it down to 30-45 minutes per hour of flight time.
Looking ahead, H55 is in talks with Pratt & Whitney and De Havilland for a 49-seat Dash-8 that is hybrid-electric with 35 percent fuel savings. In the short term out to about 2028-29, they see a big market in the commuter and feeder space, an area the airlines have been struggling with. As battery performance improves, they can go up to bigger machines.
A second project H55 has is with Harbour Air, whose airplanes typically carry 6-8 passengers, and that’s doing better since the battery technology has improved since they started the company.
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