Five on Friday: Hydrogen highlighted, Regent defence move and Vertical raise

Often touted as a propulsion solution to be realised by the mid-2030s at the earliest, hydrogen was the key theme in two big stories this week.

Joby reportedly completed a nine-hour flight of a hydrogen-powered uncrewed aerial system (UAS) at the Pendleton UAS Range in eastern Oregon.

Meanwhile, Horizon Aircraft announced a partnership with ZeroAvia to explore the potential of integrating the latter’s hydrogen propulsion system in Horizon’s Cavorite aircraft.

Joby’s UAS flight – tail reg: N30FR – is another example of it incorporating the capabilities of the companies it has acquired in recent years (H2Fly and Xwing). It also offers a look into the Californian developer’s dual use vision, which goes beyond offering its eVTOL to the military.

Hydrogen (H2) power – exemplified by this nine-hour flight – also offers greater versatility to meet the needs of niche ad-hoc missions the military wants new platforms to undertake. One expert told us they would not be surprised if more Department of Defense (DoD) projects emerge out of Joby’s skunkworks.

Horizon Aircraft, a Canadian company which has also completed DoD contracts as part of its VTOL aircraft development, has a go-to-market strategy based around hybrid-electric power using internal combustion engines. CEO Brandon Robinson told us the partnership with ZeroAvia does not impact those plans.

“There is a lot of misinformation around from ‘experts’ and we wanted to find a company that had done the hard engineering, broke things and understood the corners of the technical box,” said Robinson.

Practically, the collaboration will see Horizon look into the technical, operational and economic feasibility of hydrogen using ZeroAvia’s expertise to inform the examination.

In terms of any benefits hydrogen hybrid-electric propulsion could bring to the Horizon’s aircraft, Robinson said: “Honestly, we don’t know yet. We are at the beginning stages of simply investigating the technical feasibility using the highest quality source we could find.”

Whilst the Horizon and ZeroAvia partnership joins a growing list of exploration agreements and memorandums of understanding that will likely not be realised this decade, if ever, Joby’s flight appears to show what hydrogen (sourcing arguments aside) is capable of doing today. Plus, how H2 does a better job of meeting mission requirements for defence.