Electra’s EL2 Ultra Short hybrid-electric demonstrator aircraft has landed at and taken off from Manhattan’s Downtown Skyport. The flights on Monday morning were part of the company’s “Life Beyond Runways” series of public displays to make the case for the nine-passenger EL9 model it is aiming to bring into commercial service from 2030.
The two-seat EL2 accessed the heliport’s 62-foot-by-62-foot landing pad to demonstrate how Electra’s blown-lift technology should enable the larger EL9 to support new regional air services to locations other than airports. The company has conducted a series of demonstration flights in various other U.S. locations to promote its Direct Aviation concept, including Virginia, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
According to Electra, the EL9 could operate from heliports and also from non-aviation sites such as barges, fields, and parking lots. The Downtown Skyport is operated by vertiport developer Skyports Infrastructure, which has active sites open in the U.S. and the UK, and is developing other locations in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia.
“Today we made aviation history in downtown Manhattan by landing a fixed-wing aircraft on a heliport,” Electra CEO Marc Allen said. “This same capability will fundamentally transform how people travel in our nation by making it faster and easier to get them to their destinations.”
Electra has reported provisional letters of intent for 2,200 aircraft purchases from prospective commercial operators for the EL9. Backed by investors including Lockheed Martin, Safran, and Honeywell Aerospace, the company also has contracts from government clients including the U.S. Army, Air Force, and Navy, as well as NASA.
According to Allen, his team is working with infrastructure partners to identify new sites for Direct Aviation routes. “There are places like this all across the country,” he said. “Communities and aviation operators are beginning to see what they could become. That’s how Direct Aviation takes shape: not by asking people to travel farther or wait longer to catch a flight, but by bringing flight closer to where they live, work, and want to go.”
The EL9 is expected to operate on routes of between 50 and 500 miles. Its powertrain includes electric motors and a Safran TG600 turbogenerator.
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