Heart Aerospace replaces ES-30 with larger ES-36 hybrid-electric regional airliner

Heart Aerospace has unveiled the ES-36, a hybrid-electric regional airliner that seats 36 passengers. It replaces the earlier ES-30 design and becomes the company's production aircraft.

The new layout pairs a two-nacelle airframe with series-hybrid propulsion. Heart says this builds a bigger cost advantage over existing regional aircraft. Compared with the ES-30, the ES-36 gains six seats and 640kg (1,415lb) of payload, a rise of 20% in both. Maximum takeoff weight and battery capacity carry over unchanged.

By devoting more of the airframe to passengers and payload, the design lifts revenue potential, the company says. Going from four nacelles and propellers to two cuts the number of parts that need maintaining, reducing maintenance costs.

The ES-30 had four engines in an independent-hybrid arrangement. The ES-36 moves to two series-hybrid powertrains instead. Each has a 1.65MW electric motor turning a propeller. Batteries charged on the ground give an all-electric range of 200km (125 miles) plus reserves, enough for short-haul sectors flown without burning fuel. A megawatt-class turbogenerator in each powertrain lifts the hybrid range to 1,200km (745 miles) plus reserves.

Each turbogenerator runs on a separate small gas turbine, a commercially available unit that produces electricity during flight to top up the batteries and feed the electric motors.

Ben Stabler, Heart's chief technology officer, said the ES-36 came directly out of what the company learned while designing the earlier aircraft.