ZeroAvia flying their new DO-228... on jet fuel?

The truth is out there

Did you know that two zero emissions aircraft companies operate out of the Cotswold Airport in the UK? One of them, ZeroAvia, builds Hydrogen powertrains. Their more established powertrain is the ZA-600, and they have converted Dornier 228’s to Hydrogen at this location. The other, Vertical Aerospace, an eVTOL company (more on them soon).

We have recently observed these Dornier 228 aircraft flying hundreds of kilometres, from Cotswold Airport where ZeroAvia have hydrogen generation and refuelling capabilities via their Shell partnership.

Where have they gone?

• To Lelystad, in The Netherlands.

• To La Roche Sur Yon, in France.

• to Braunschweig-Wolfsburg in Germany.

All three of these locations are part a local Hydrogen industry group, and a little research (🤖) shows that it shouldn’t be difficult to order a truck to meet you at any of these three airports. Its tantalizing - while we have no confirmation at all that this aircraft has been converted to hydrogen yet, it seems like it might be possible? And certainly, I want it to be true - it would be a stunning feat if ZeroAvia were effortlessly flying an H2 powered DO-228 around Europe.

However, tonight while looking for images of the ZeroAvia DO-228 in question, I came upon a great shot of it from Berend Jan Floor’s AirOnline.nl

Mr. Jan Floor wrote a great article about ZeroAvia DO-228 with several really great photos of the aircraft (Mr. Jan Floor is an excellent and experienced photographer), and in the article, he reports that the aircraft has not been converted to Hydrogen yet. Given that previous flight tests were only minutes long, this seems like the most reasonable explanation.

Courtesy of Berend Jan Floor of AirOnline.nl

I’ve reached out to him to confirm, but it doesn’t seem super likely that its true. Tomorrow I’ll do the work to remove this aircraft from our DB until such time as I can confirm that its running on H2. It was fun while it lasted!