The American company Ampaire conducted flight tests of a hybrid version of the passenger aircraft Cessna 337 Skymaster flight on the route between the two Hawaiian Islands. According to Flightglobal, the total flight distance was 90 kilometers, and the plane flew it only using batteries without turning on the generator. The test flight was considered successful.
The hybrid version of the Cessna 337 developed by Ampaire is equipped with a Continental IO-550 internal combustion engine mounted in the tail section. It rotates a pusher propeller and an electric generator. The pulling propeller in the nose is driven by a 200 kilowatt electric motor, specially limited to 120 kilowatts.
The hybrid version of the Cessna 337 is designed for a flight duration of 75 minutes. The plane can also fly for another 30 minutes on a backup battery.
During the tests, the aircraft flew between the Islands of Kahului and Hana. A one-way flight between the Islands takes about 20 minutes. The test flight was conducted jointly with the passenger carrier Mokulele Airlines. The flight was the first in a series of demonstration flights on the Hawaiian Islands.
Earlier, the French startup VoltAero started bench testing the distributed propulsion system of the promising hybrid aircraft Cassio. The scheme of a distributed hybrid propulsion system also involves the participation of an internal combustion engine in the rotation of the propellers. The design of the Cassio aircraft assumes that it will be able to fly both with the help of exclusively electric traction, and with the help of an internal combustion engine alone.
Vasily Sychev