FAA Puts $2.9 Million Behind Heart Aerospace's ES-36 Turbogenerator

The Federal Aviation Administration has awarded Heart Aerospace a $2.9 million grant aimed at the powerplant side of its ES-36 program. The money is earmarked for putting the aircraft's turbogenerator through its paces, first on the test stand and then in the air. A turbogenerator pairs a gas turbine with an electrical generator rather than driving a propeller directly, which is the piece of a hybrid architecture that regulators have the least certification history with. That makes the FAA's decision to fund the test campaign itself, rather than simply wait for the data, the part worth noting. For anyone who operates under Part 91 and watches how the agency approaches novel propulsion, this is federal money going toward building the evidence base the certification process will eventually lean on. The grant does not change the ES-36's timeline on its own, and the wire does not say when the flight portion of the testing is expected to begin. What it does establish is that the agency considers this particular hardware worth a line item.

With reporting from AVweb.