Startup Breaks Records with Hydrogen-Powered Flight Written 11 April 2023

The San Jose Mercury News reports, “Hydrogen fuel cells increasingly are looking like feasible options to help the aviation sector clean up its act.” Universal Hydrogen completed a 15-minute demonstration flight in which a 40-passenger turboprop jet had its right turbine engine replaced “with a 1-megawatt powertrain fueled entirely by a hydrogen fuel cell.” The flight broke the records for the largest plane to ever take to the skies and to cruise primarily on hydrogen. However, challenges to flights fueled only by clean hydrogen fuel cells include making sure the fuel is “genuinely clean” and not produced via carbon-emitting means, designing aircraft to handle hydrogen fuel cell systems, and getting hydrogen from where it’s produced to airports.
Full Story (San Jose Mercury News)

Video

Universal Hydrogen First Flight Mini-Documentary (March 2, 2023)
Lightning McClean, a 40-passenger regional airliner powered by hydrogen fuel cells.
(Universal Hydrogen, Co.; YouTube)