U.S. Air Force electrified aircraft program gets help from Congress on tech transition goal
By Paul Brinkmann|January 9, 2025
Director describes promise for operational applications
AIAA SCITECH FORUM, ORLANDO, Fla. — The director of the division that runs the U.S. Air Force program to research emerging electric aircraft, AFWERX Agility Prime, is eager to see one or more of those aircraft designs transitioned into active military service.
And the first to be transitioned, when that happens, will almost certainly be a hybrid-electric aircraft rather than battery only, due to the need for range of over 240 kilometers and for payload capacity of over 90 kilograms, said Lt. Col. Jonathan “Spades” Gilbert, AFWERX Prime Division director, in an interview I conducted for an audience in the exposition hall here.
“The goal is absolutely to transition something. I wish I knew a timeline because that would make a lot of things easier,” Gilbert told me in the interview. “We are focused on how we transition, and who we are transitioning to. That’s a major challenge at times in the vast DoD [Department of Defense] bureaucracy of program offices and requirements. We’re focused on meeting the current needs of the program offices out there.”
Agility Prime is one of two programs under the Prime Division, the other being Autonomy Prime. The programs aim to “prime” commercial markets to produce technology that benefits the armed forces.
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Gilbert said he is looking for further guidance from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, which has been tasked by Congress with setting up a working group to identify programs of the armed forces that could benefit from electric or hybrid-electric aircraft as researched by Agility Prime. That directive is in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden on Dec. 23.
Agility Prime’s flights of battery-only electric aircraft capable of vertical takeoff and landing were informative. The flights have included an ALIA aircraft built by BETA Technologies of Vermont. In 2022, the ALIA became the first electric aircraft to be flown by airmen, in a flight at the company’s Plattsburgh, New York, facility. Joby Aviation’s S4 has been flown at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Archer Aviation’s Midnight aircraft has been flown at the company’s facility in Salinas, California.
The benefits of any electrified aircraft include lower fuel requirements, quieter flight and the ability to instantly spin up electric engines for quick takeoff, he said.
However, “we are starting to see the limitations of all-electric. It has a ton of benefits, but we’ve also identified limitations, namely range and payload. So that’s where the hybrid-electric comes in, because I can get a lot of the benefits of the electric system, but now I can increase range and payload. It’s a win-win for everything”.
Such capabilities will “shape a lot of future efforts in advanced logistics, particularly in the Pacific Theater,” Gilbert said, because “instead of having large bases in a couple locations, I may have tens or hundreds of bases that I have to resupply with shorter legs but up to 1,000 miles [1,600 km]. For that, I’m going to need something more capable than what we are currently seeing out of the electric-only.”
While the range of battery-electric aircraft varies and is increasing, current models have a maximum range of about 450 km, while at least one hybrid-electric aircraft evaluated by Agility Prime has a range of 2,000 km.
Despite the advantages of hybrid, Gilbert said Agility Prime is not done evaluating all-electric designs. He said the Army in particular has an interest.
A primary benefit of all-electric would be lower noise, he said. “The quieter I can infiltrate into a hostile area, the better. Especially if I’m going to be dropping off special operators or troops. Not giving the adversary any advance warning of our arrival is a huge advantage.”
Regardless of whether an all-electric aircraft is transitioned to military service, Gilbert said developers of such aircraft, like Archer and Joby, have advanced the capability to rapidly manufacture emerging novel aircraft designs.
“Some of these all-electric aircraft companies have made incredible leaps in manufacturing technology. I think that’s an area where industry is far outpacing the current [U.S. Air Force] sustainment centers in aircraft manufacturing,” he said.
