Five Norwegian sites will host hybrid-electric EL2 demonstration flights in 2027
A quay with no runway, a business park, two large hub airports and a short northern strip: Bristow, Electra, Avinor and the aviation authority have picked the places where the EL2 demonstrator will test what ultra-short flight needs from Norway.
OSLO: Norway's programme for testing low-emission flight has its map. Bristow Group, Electra, airport operator Avinor and the Civil Aviation Authority of Norway announced in Oslo on Monday, Oct. 19 that demonstration flights with Electra's hybrid-electric EL2 technology demonstrator will be held at five locations across the country. The aircraft needs only about 50 metres to take off and land, pairing electric propulsion with a turbogenerator that runs on sustainable aviation fuel, and the flights are meant to build the operational, regulatory and market knowledge that bringing electric and hybrid-electric aircraft into service will require.
The five sites were chosen to cover three kinds of ground. Horvnes quay near Sandnessjøen and the Kongsbergporten Business Park will host operations at places where no runway exists today. Oslo and Trondheim airports will test how the aircraft fits into large, busy airport environments. Mosjøen Airport, in Northern Norway, stands in for the country's many short-runway airfields, where the partners want to assess both what the aircraft can do and the new approach procedures it may need.
Each partner is looking for a different answer. Avinor's executive vice president for sustainability and infrastructure, Karianne Helland Strand, said the point was to "test the technology under different conditions and in different parts of the aviation system", so the partners learn what new aircraft will demand of infrastructure, airspace, procedures and rules. The aviation authority's director of innovation, research and sustainability, Jan Petter Steinland, said flying in so many settings would show whether the existing rulebook is fit for purpose, and how an aircraft with the EL2's characteristics can be mixed safely with other traffic. Dave Stepanek of Bristow said the chosen sites would show the flexibility of ultra-short aircraft across operating environments, and that detailed planning for next year's demonstrations can now begin.
The demonstrations sit inside Norway's international test arena for zero- and low-emission aviation, a government-backed initiative led by Avinor and the aviation authority, with state funding, which opens the airport network and Norwegian airspace to structured testing of new aircraft. The EL2 itself is Electra's two-seat Goldfinch demonstrator: eight electric propellers blow air over its wing to generate the lift for ultra-short takeoffs and landings, and it made its first flights in Virginia in November 2023, flying all-electric on Nov. 11 and hybrid-electric on Nov. 19 of that year, according to Electra's release at the time.
Work now turns to preparation. The partners will draw up the detailed test programme, secure the approvals the flights need and get each location ready, with the first demonstration flight planned for the third quarter of 2027. What the flights show about infrastructure, operations and regulation at the five sites is intended to shape the requirements Norway sets when aircraft of this kind move from demonstration to service.
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