Air Race E is entering an exciting new phase in the revolutionary motorsport’s development, with its first generation of race planes being developed in partnership with ground-breaking engineering provider, Kasaero.
Those developments are already underway as Air Race E takes its next major step towards delivering both thrilling racing and the technology that will set the aviation industry on a path to sustainability.
Sustainability is a key component in Air Race E’s ambition to reimagine the future of transport based on its game-changing platform for innovation that it offers the industry.
Jeff Zaltman, CEO of Air Race E, said: “Air Race E has continuously been the leading pioneer in electric aviation motorsport since we announced the first, and still the only, manned electric air race series in the world. We have consistently proven our vision from flying the first electric race plane to now: the development of cutting-edge race aircraft which will be the technology platform the industry needs to accelerate green technologies in the aerospace sector.”
In its first design open phase, Air Race E went to the market with 17 teams building electric solutions for the first-ever manned electric air racing series.
From that undertaking, which was bolstered by the research data and industry expertise of the Air Race E partners such as Airbus, Ansys and the University of Nottingham, the Air Race E team were able to collect vital knowledge from a wealth of forward-thinking developers.
Kasaero CEO, Karl Käser, added: “The original phase of concept-building within Air Race E and by its 17 developmental contenders brought us to this point. Now, we at Kasaero are applying our design and integration expertise in innovative aerospace projects to propel the Air Race E project even further and to realize the goal of fielding eight high-performance electric race aircraft.”
That led to the Nordic Air Racing Team’s historic maiden flight that saw Rein Inge Hoff become the first person to pilot an all-electric race plane.
Since then, those collective learnings have been mined by the Air Race E team and Kasaero.
That has helped set the course for the latest exciting development phase, which will ultimately lead to providing teams with cleaner, faster, and more technologically advanced electric racing motors that will launch Air Race E’s series debut.
Hoff said: “We were proud to have built and flown the first electric race plane in history. But that was just the beginning of the innovation process. With more flights and more data under our belt, we are quickly gathering critical data to accelerate further development.”
Air Race E will deliver its racing action to audiences around the world, both live and on television, with the eventual series featuring eight airplanes racing directly against each other at speeds of around 450kph and around a tight circuit just 10 meters above the ground.
As well as Airbus and Kasaero, Air Race E is already working with a number of key industry figures and continue to welcome even more with an objective to bring greener aviation into the space.