Diana Siegel

Diana focuses on the definition of Electra’s future products in collaboration with Electra’s ecosystem partners. Prior to joining Electra, she led the commercial programs team at Aurora Flight Sciences, where, among other projects, she and her team developed and flight tested subscale and full-scale eVTOL prototypes targeted at the urban air mobility market. In addition to prototyping, Diana has experience in aviation product development and aftermarket services via her roles in systems engineering for MBDA, product engineering for Lufthansa-Technik and graduate research for Avidyne. She was also a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group, where she worked closely with corporate customers to set up and execute strategy and venture programs. Diana holds an MSc in aeronautical engineering from MIT and a BA in electrical engineering from the University of Queensland.

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Presentation

Hybrid electric propulsion system to power blown-lift eSTOL aircraft

Electra has developed and tested a hybrid electric propulsion system to power its blown-lift eSTOL aircraft, able to take-off and land within an area the size of a soccer field. The hybrid system consists of a turbogenerator and battery pack powering eight distributed electric propulsors arranged along the leading edge of the wing. This arrangement results in a multiplication of lift generated at slow speed, giving the aircraft the ability to liftoff and land within two to three vehicle lengths. Electra has demonstrated this effect in prior wind tunnel tests and at subscale. Electra has recently integrated the hybrid system into its 2-seat technology demonstrator and will begin flight testing by Q3 2023. This presentation will discuss learnings and insights from the integration and testing of the hybrid propulsion system. Electra’s future product is a 9-seat version of its eSTOL aircraft.