This Week Will Be The First Test Flight For This Hydrogen Plane Startup

A regional jet that Universal Hydrogen converted to hydrogen is currently being prepared for takeoff.

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The corporate headquarters of Universal Hydrogen Co. are both distinctive and appropriate. In the vicinity of Los Angeles, the company has seized control of a hangar at the Hawthorne Municipal Airport. The actor and occasionally errant pilot Harrison Ford lives next door, and Elon Musk, who frequently parks his own jet at the airport, is a little farther down the street. It would be difficult to do better than Han Solo and the creator of SpaceX for a firm seeking to reinvent air travel.

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With its $100 million in funding, Universal hopes to have a significant impact on the aircraft industry's future switch from kerosene to hydrogen fuel, which is better for the environment. Its long-term goal is to provide hydrogen-filled containers built by Universal for a new generation of airplanes that can be transported to airports and loaded onto aircraft using current cargo equipment. It aims to someday supply an essential component of the infrastructure for fueling airports all over the world.

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Universal created a conversion kit that can power a small, regional aircraft using hydrogen fuel cells in an effort to demonstrate what is feasible. This week, the business intends to fly a Dash 8-300 that has been modified in this manner for the first time, making two passes over Grant County International Airport in Moses Lake, Washington. Paul Eremenko, co-founder and CEO of Universal, who is 43 years old, said that it will be by far the biggest hydrogen-fuel cell aircraft to ever fly.

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Universal is interested in larger aircraft, akin to the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320, as well as more regional planes to switch to hydrogen. The great majority of flights in the US, Europe, and China are conducted using those types of aircraft. Due to the amount of space that hydrogen consumes, a technological advancement would be necessary to make it feasible for aircraft operating on international routes to run on hydrogen. Eremenko, though, remarked that it was fine for the time being. The majority of CO2 emissions come from relatively short flights, which is somewhat paradoxical.

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According to Eremenko, hydrogen is the best option for achieving the western world's greenhouse gas reduction goals. The upcoming wave of synthetic and biofuels, in Eremenko's opinion, are "perhaps the largest scam ever committed by the business," as he sees them as being ineffective and not particularly climate friendly. There is no other scenario, according to Eremenko, who has been working on and researching this for a very long time, that will bring aviation emissions to zero by 2050.

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Eremenko has previously worked at Google, the research and development division of the US Defense Department (DARPA), and Airbus SE, where he held the position of chief technology officer. In order to make it simpler for aircraft manufacturers and airlines to think about basing their future fleets on hydrogen-powered engines, he co-founded Universal Hydrogen in 2020.

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The venture financing firm Playground Global, which Andy Rubin, the man behind Google Android, co-founded, and Coatue both support the startup. Further supporting the venture are Airbus Ventures, JetBlue Technology Ventures, GE Aviation, and American Airlines.

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The initial phase of Universal's strategy sounds straightforward. The business has focused its R&D efforts on developing "modules," or containers, that can carry both gaseous and liquid forms of hydrogen. While the liquid containers are composed of metal and the gas containers of carbon fiber, both are made with safety, security, and lightness in mind. The containers would be filled with hydrogen at a factory, transported to airports, and then slotted into aircraft exactly like regular cargo.

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Eremenko contended that this concept would allow airports and airlines to switch to hydrogen without having to make significant modifications to their current fueling infrastructure. We are able to transport the modules by trucks, railroads, and boats, he added. And they are treated like regular freight once they arrive at the airport.

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Of course, the fact that hydrogen-powered engines are actually required for airplanes presents a significant difficulty. That might take a while. The largest aircraft manufacturer in the world, Airbus, recently disclosed plans to release a hydrogen model around 2035. Guillaume Faury, the company's CEO, has voiced skepticism that there would ever be enough electrolyzed "green hydrogen" to power an entire fleet of aircraft. In November of last year, he stated, "I am concerned about the availability, or lack thereof, of green hydrogen at the right quantity, at the right place, at the right price in the second part of the decade.

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One element of demonstrating the viability of hydrogen is the conversion kit from Universal. Starting in 2025, Connect Airlines, a start-up that wants to fly between Chicago, Philadelphia, and Toronto this year, proposes to work with Universal to convert 75 ATR 72-600 small aircraft to hydrogen powertrains. Total 247 orders for the conversion kits have been placed with Universal by 16 different clients, including Air New Zealand.

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According to Connect CEO and former CEO of Virgin Australia Airlines John Thomas, the live demonstration this week is a crucial test. He stated, "We consider this test flight as a turning point for the industry. "I believe people will pay notice and sit up,"

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An enormous number of things must go well and quickly for Universal to be successful. The company will probably need a lot of investment as it moves toward the first sales of its containers in 2025 because it is in the fuel infrastructure sector.

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Because the airline industry has so few other options if it wants to be viewed as environmentally conscious, at least one of its investors is relying on Universal to prevail. Peter Barrett, a founder and general partner at Playground Global, asserted that Boeing and Airbus wouldn't change until they absolutely had to. "Well, the planet is burning and sinking, so they must. Once these options are available, it gets more difficult and harder to push back.”