Pre-project for the first Norwegian electric seaplane

Aviation is essential for the Norwegian society and industry as an efficient means of transporting people and goods across Norway's challenging topography (e.g. long coasts and mountainous terrain). However, this comes with high environmental costs due to the high CO2 emissions associated with airplane travel and in fact, Norway’s CO2 emissions from aviation is increasing due to an increase in passengers at Norwegian airports. To help solve these challenges, Elfly aims to research and develop a new solution for green and sustainable short haul aviation based on a new flying boat equipped with lithium-ion batteries powered by renewable energy together with new floating airports and marine landing zones. We have previously developed the concept for the floating airport and a drone prototype that we will use to test the performance of the flying boat design. In this project, we want to investigate the possibilities of developing a main project to apply to the Pilot-T funding scheme. To do this, we aim to (1) investigate existing research on topics related to electric aircraft (e.g. battery capacity and the flying boats weight and balance) and industry standards and regulations, (2) network and outline crucial partnerships with research institutions and other companies within the aviation sector to secure technological and commercial knowledge for full-scale adoption of our technology, and (3) outline project activities, goals and budget of the main project that are required for developing the new solution for marine electric aviation and which partner that will be responsible for each task. The new green and sustainable solution for aviation has the potential to significantly reduce CO2 emissions and operational costs of air travel. The new marine electric aviation solution can also improve access to green mobility solution as it will enable airports closer to city centres and areas with limited space for land-based airports.

Aviation is essential for the Norwegian society and industry as an efficient means of transporting people and goods across Norway's challenging topography (e.g. long coasts and mountainous terrain). E.g. a travel between Oslo and Bergen takes approximately 7 or 9 hours by car or train respectively whereas it takes only 50 minutes by airplane. However, this comes with high environmental costs due to the high CO2 emissions associated with airplane travel. In fact, Norway's CO2 emissions from aviation is increasing due to an increase in passengers at Norwegian airports. On the other hand, airports are currently located far from city centres and due to their size they cannot be built everywhere. There is thus a need for novel solutions such as electric propulsion and batteries to decarbonise the aviation sector and marine aviation to improve the mobility of Norway's transport system. We intend to research and develop ByFly, a new innovative concept for marine electric aviation featuring a new electric flying boat with a range of 90 min and a floating airport and marine landing zones. We have previously developed the concept for the floating airport and a drone prototype that will be used to test the performance of the flying boat design during the summer. We now want to further develop the ByFly concept by developing a full-scale prototype flying boat with 9 seats and piloting the ByFly concept together with a pilot customer such as a municipality. ByFly will provide a new green and sustainable way of aviation that has the potential to significantly reduce CO2 emissions and operational costs of air travel. By using electric flying boats, the airports will be able to be located on water closer to the city centres and where there is limited space to build a land-based airport. ByFly is thus perfectly fitted to Norwegian conditions since 80% of the population lives next to the sea or lakes and it will improve the mobility and accessibility of Norway's transport system.