Eric Bartsch

Eric Bartsch is CEO and co-founder of VerdeGo Aero, a leader in hybrid electric powertrain systems. VerdeGo has been developing hybrid electric aerospace powerplants for high-performance, high-efficiency electric flight since 2017. For more than a decade, Bartsch has been at the forefront of electric propulsion in aerospace. He has experience leading the development, flight testing and commercialization of electrified aircraft. Bartsch holds commercial, instrument and glider flight ratings with experience piloting electric airplanes. He is also an inventor or co-inventor of more than 20 patents. VerdeGo's hybrids are enabling electrification to be practical and useful for military and commercial missions.

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Presentation

Contrasting the capabilities of hybrid and battery-electric aircraft

Electrification will only make a sustainability impact for aviation if it can deliver useful mission capabilities that replace existing aircraft. VerdeGo has applied experimental data from its hybrid powerplants to model the performance of electrified aircraft with both hybrid and battery powertrains. The results of this work show a compelling case for hybridization being the propulsion architecture that will have the biggest impact on the most use cases as electrification becomes mainstream. While the automotive industry evolved from hybrids to battery power, aviation is moving in the other direction from batteries in R&D aircraft to hybrids in production use cases.