In Manhattan, a plane lands where the helicopters are parked

Yesterday in Lower Manhattan, Electra’s EL2 two-seater hybrid-electric demonstration aircraft landed and took off from the 91-metre barge at Downtown Skyport, the heliport opened in 1960 at Pier 6 on the East River, just a few piers away from the landing stage where, since 1934, the seaplanes of Wall Street’s most powerful figures had been landing. This is the first ‘dry’ operation at that site for a fixed-wing aircraft without vertical take-off capability.

A symbolic flight, between skyscrapers and the Brooklyn Bridge, which carries weight in terms of the certification and social acceptance of the future nine-seater EL9, currently undergoing certification. The aim is a fixed-wing commercial flight that is closer to real-world departure and destination points, fast and competitively priced, capable of making regional air travel scalable. Electra’s CEO likes to measure it against the six requirements of the self-defined ‘Rule of Six’: helicopter-style access, quiet operation, payload, range, fixed-wing costs and safety. A combination that the company describes, for now, as unique within the European landscape, which falls under EASA’s Innovative Air Mobility framework.

However, it is not just a matter of ultra-short take-offs. Direct Aviation is targeting existing and ‘re-imagined’ infrastructure, originally built for other purposes: car parks and compact areas, jetties and floating platforms, suburban and rural areas, airfields currently used mainly for recreational flying, and sites for helicopters and future eVTOLs.

There are two technical features. The series hybrid propulsion system: a turbo-generator derived from helicopter technology does not provide thrust, but generates power in real time, enabling take-off and landing in electric-only mode. And ‘blown lift’: eight small electric motors distributed across the wing increase lift and lower the stall speed, reducing the take-off and landing run. This offers an interesting prospect both for civilian applications (urgent deliveries, emergencies and medical transport) and for logistical and military uses, particularly where airport infrastructure is lacking or unusable.

The project is structured across three levels, which are also reflected in the demonstration programme that will bring the EL2 to Europe in 2027, thanks to the collaboration of launch partner Bristow and the support of the civil aviation authority Avinor. The first is to make better use of existing infrastructure: smaller airports and, where permitted, airfields that are currently underutilised, without building new airports. In Italia, this is the rationale behind Regional Air Mobility, which ENAC has entrusted to its in-house company ENAC Servizi – the operator of over twenty regional airports – which plans to focus on aircraft with 9 to 19 seats to revitalise the network of smaller and regional Italian airports.