Zunum Aero (Mayan for

hummingbird Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the biological family Trochilidae. With about 361 species and 113 genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but the vast majority of the species are found in the tropics aro ...

) was an

aircraft manufacturer An aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing, building, testing, selling, and maintaining aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles, rockets, or spacecraft. Aerospace is a high technology indust ...

startup based in

Kirkland, Washington Kirkland is a city in King County, Washington, United States. A suburb east of Seattle, its population was 92,175 in the 2020 U.S. census which made it the sixth largest city in the county and the twelfth largest in the state. The city's downto ...

. Backed by

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

HorizonX and

JetBlue JetBlue Airways Corporation (stylized as jetBlue) is a major American low cost airline, and the seventh largest airline in North America by passengers carried. The airline is headquartered in the Long Island City neighborhood of the New York C ...

Technology Ventures, the company worked from 2013 to 2018 on a proposed family of

hybrid electric A hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is a type of hybrid vehicle that combines a conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) system with an electric propulsion system (hybrid vehicle drivetrain). The presence of the electric powertrain is intended ...

regional aircraft A regional airliner or a feederliner is a small airliner that is designed to fly up to 100 passengers on short-haul flights, usually feeding larger carriers' airline hubs from small markets. This class of airliners is typically flown by the r ...

of up to 50 seats.

History

Zunum Aero was founded in 2013 with Ashish Kumar as CEO and Matt Knapp as CTO. Around the beginning of 2017 they launched plans to fly a

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...

hybrid-electric airliner in 2019 or 2020, under the revamped

FAR Part 23 The Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) are rules prescribed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) governing all aviation activities in the United States. The FARs comprise Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). A wide variety o ...

rules for electric aircraft standards expected by 2018 and with first

type certification A type certificate signifies the airworthiness of a particular category of aircraft, according to its manufacturing design (''type design''). It confirms that the aircraft of a new type intended for serial production, is in compliance with applica ...

by 2020. In April 2017, JetBlue Technology Ventures and Boeing HorizonX invested a combined $6.2 million in

Series A funding A series A round (also known as series A financing or series A investment) is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exchan ...

. This was matched by an $800,000

research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...

grant from

Washington state Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washington ...

’s Clean Energy Fund. Beyond February 2018 Zunum needed $50 million in

Series B funding Venture capital financing is a type of funding by venture capital. It is private equity capital that can be provided at various stages or funding rounds. Common funding rounds include early-stage seed funding in high-potential, growth companies ( ...

and received bridging loans from JetBlue and Boeing in April, allowing hiring in the summer of 2018. However the company failed to attract additional investors. Nearly all of the 70 staff were laid off in November 2018, bringing complaints of unpaid wages. Both the headquarters in

Bothell Bothell () is a city in King and Snohomish counties in the U.S. state of Washington. It is part of the Seattle metropolitan area, situated near the northeast end of Lake Washington. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 48,161 resident ...

near Seattle and facilities in

Indianapolis Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...

closed. Zunum has since released information saying that their hardware and technical assets are in their possession and in storage, and that they are currently fundraising for the next chapter of their company. In November 2020, Zunum Aero filed a lawsuit against Boeing alleging that Boeing tried “to gain access to proprietary information,

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...

” and then used its dominance “to delay and then foreclose” Zunum’s operation, “in order to maintain its dominant position in commercial aviation by stifling

competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...

”, using this proprietary information “to provide a hybrid-electric propulsion system for a different aircraft design” with

Safran Safran S.A. is a French multinational company that designs, develops and manufactures aircraft engines, rocket engines as well as various aerospace and defense-related equipment or their components. It was formed by a merger between SNECMA and ...

. Zunum said that Boeing tried to poach Zunum’s engineers.

Six-to-12-seat ZA10

Development

On 5 October 2017, Zunum Aero formally launched the development of a six-to-12-seat aircraft. Purchase cost was expected to stay below the list price of a $4.5 million single-engine turboprop such as the

Pilatus PC-12 The Pilatus PC-12 is a pressurized, single-engined, turboprop aircraft, manufactured by Pilatus Aircraft of Stans, Switzerland, since 1991. It was designed as a high-performance utility aircraft that incorporates a large aft cargo door in ad ...

or Cessna Denali. Zunum targeted a $250 hourly operating cost including fuel, electricity, and batteries, or 8 cents per ASM. This would have been inferior to a

Boeing 737 The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Renton Factory in Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the 707 fuselage width and six abreast seating with two un ...

for sectors, comparable to a

Q400 The De Havilland Canada DHC-8, commonly known as the Dash 8, is a series of turboprop-powered regional airliners, introduced by de Havilland Canada (DHC) in 1984. DHC was later bought by Boeing in 1988, then by Bombardier in 1992; then by ...

over , and 3 to 5 times cheaper than a similarly sized PC-12 or

Beechcraft King Air The Beechcraft King Air is a line of American utility aircraft produced by Beechcraft. The King Air line comprises a number of twin-turboprop models that have been divided into two families. The Model 90 and 100 series developed in the 1960s ...

. In May 2018, private jet charter

JetSuite Superior Air Charter (previously JetSuite) is a private jet charter company based out of Dallas, Texas. The company was founded in 2006 by Alex Wilcox. In 2008, the company was re-branded from Magnum Jet after a push from financial backers. Wi ...

was announced as the launch customer for the proposed nine-passenger hybrid, for up to 100 aircraft. Zunum investor JetBlue Airways was also a strategic investor in JetSuite, led by founding JetBlue executive

Alex Wilcox Alex Wilcox is an American airline executive and businessman. He co-founded JetSuiteX, since renamed JSX, and is JSX's CEO. Wilcox was a founding executive of JetBlue Airways as well as president and COO of Kingfisher Airlines until 2006. Wilc ...

. Ground tests of hybrid-electric power system subassemblies began in early 2018. In October 2018, Zunum selected

to supply a new 3Z variant of its 1,700-2,000 hp (1,270-1,500 kW) Ardiden turboshaft, delivering 500kW with an electric generator. Turbogenerator and batteries were each designed to provide about half the power required initially, before batteries improved and could take over. The battery pack

energy density In physics, energy density is the amount of energy stored in a given system or region of space per unit volume. It is sometimes confused with energy per unit mass which is properly called specific energy or . Often only the ''useful'' or extract ...

would have been upgraded regularly, to increase planned range from between 2020 and 2030. The evolving batteries would have been certified every two years and introduced often, in line with their anticipated short cycle lives at high utilization rates.

Design

Design work focused on the power system. This would initially have been a series hybrid type with an onboard turbo-generator supplementing the batteries for longer flights. A 1MW (1,350 hp)

gas turbine A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas generator or core) and are, in the directi ...

would have driven twin 500 kW

generator Generator may refer to: * Signal generator, electronic devices that generate repeating or non-repeating electronic signals * Electric generator, a device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy. * Generator (circuit theory), an eleme ...

s supplying batteries installed in the wings. These in turn would have driven

ducted fan In aeronautics, a ducted fan is a thrust-generating mechanical fan or propeller mounted within a cylindrical duct or shroud. Other terms include ducted propeller or shrouded propeller. When used in vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) applicatio ...

s. The

rechargeable battery A rechargeable battery, storage battery, or secondary cell (formally a type of Accumulator (energy), energy accumulator), is a type of electrical battery which can be charged, discharged into a load, and recharged many times, as opposed to ...

packs would have needed to be replaced every six months after 1,000-1,500 cycles. The hybrid generator would have been used initially to meet FAA reserves for a planned range of 700 nm (1,300 km). It would eventually have been replaced with a third battery pack giving a 45-minute reserve. Airport turnarounds were hoped to be as short as 10 minutes for battery swaps or

fast charger A battery charger, recharger, or simply charger is a device that stores energy in a battery by running an electric current through it. The charging protocol (how much voltage or current for how long, and what to do when charging is complete) depen ...

s. When the company closed, Zunum had yet to decide the basic

airframe The mechanical structure of an aircraft is known as the airframe. This structure is typically considered to include the fuselage, undercarriage, empennage and wings, and excludes the propulsion system. Airframe design is a field of aerospa ...

configuration, sizing and materials.

References

External links