MOSES LAKE, Washington — A small crowd of investors, airline representatives and journalists at Moses Lake in Central Washington got a first look Thursday morning at whether hydrogen power might be the future of sustainable, zero-emissions aviation.
A turboprop De Havilland Canada Dash 8-300 retrofitted by Los Angeles-based startup Universal Hydrogen took off from Moses Lake in a brief pioneering flight aimed at proving the technology viable.
With a large tank of liquid hydrogen in the back of the cabin, reducing the seating capacity from over 50 passengers to about 40 — though only test pilot Alex Kroll and two flight crew were on board — the plane flew with one propeller powered by a regular Pratt & Whitney aviation fuel engine, the other by a motor fed electricity from a liquid hydrogen fuel cell.
