The airplane that Everett, Wash.-based magniX will use to test its hybrid electric propulsion system for a $74.3 million NASA demonstration project is ready to go on the outside, and it’ll soon be ready on the inside as well.
Today magniX and its partners unveiled the De Havilland Dash 7 plane at Seattle’s Boeing Field in preparation for its conversion for NASA’s Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration project, or EPFD. The aircraft now bears the logos of magniX, NASA and Air Tindi, the Canadian regional carrier from which the Dash 7 was acquired.
“There’s a lot of work left to be done, but when you see the airplane, and you see the great livery and what’s behind it, it allows you to think about all of the really important work, all of the really hard work that’s gone on,” said Bob Pearce, NASA’s associate administrator for the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate.
The plane has already gone through baseline flight tests with its four standard Pratt & Whitney PT6A turbine engines — operating from Moses Lake, Wash., with technical assistance from Seattle-based AeroTEC. Meanwhile, magniX’s 650-watt electric motor has been tested at NASA’s Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Ohio under conditions that simulate altitudes of up to 27,500 feet.
Now the project timeline calls for replacing two of the PT6A engines with magni650 electric motors, one at a time, and installing magniX’s 450-kWh Samson battery packs. Flight tests with the hybrid electric system are due to begin in 2026.
