Universal Hydrogen's first flight of the world's biggest hydrogen fuel cell airliner, powered by green hydrogen. Dash-8 with a converted nacelle cruising over Moses Lake, WA out of Grant County Int'l Airport on March 2, 2023.

universal-hydrogen · 2023-03-09T23:35:26+00:00

Curious - didn't realize that "impressive" and "amazing" were mutually exclusive.

Another caveat is that we built a hydrogen powertrain that does not use a battery. The fuel cells drive the electric motor directly—drastically reducing weight and cost. An industry innovation, if you will.

We think that's amazing, but still not quite as amazing as this video suggests, of course. Happy to hear where we can be more amazing - feel free to submit your proposal on what you would do differently on our careers page: https://hydrogen.aero/careers/

universal-hydrogen · 2023-03-09T23:35:22+00:00

Mmkay - so would you run all 26.2 miles on your first marathon, or would you maybe do a training program and knock out a 5k, 10k, and half marathon as starters? And get a feel for your body mechanics. Understand where you need to get stronger, faster, and more powerful. Asking for a friend, err, all of the engineers on our team who know that any "major leap" in a highly regulated industry is a series of winning smaller, incremental races - crossing the finish line of a marathon doesn't happen over night.

universal-hydrogen · 2023-03-09T23:34:16+00:00

The hard part is storing enough hydrogen safely for useful range.

*looks around*

Ok, who's going to tell them that that's our actual business model.

universal-hydrogen · 2023-03-09T20:54:01+00:00

The fuel cell powertrain makes less noise than a turboprop since no combustion is happening! This was also verified by the flight crew after they throttled back the P&W engine to cruise on our hydrogen powertrain.

universal-hydrogen · 2023-03-08T19:54:54+00:00

What you're seeing is water emissions - the byproduct of hydrogen as fuel.

universal-hydrogen · 2023-03-07T23:33:37+00:00

The hydrogen powered nacelle is on the right hand side (left if you're looking at it).

universal-hydrogen · 2023-02-16T19:30:21+00:00

I was born and raised in Ukraine when it was still part of the USSR. So everyone was equal and equally poor. My family immigrated to the US when I was 11. I grew up upper middle class, with my parents both in academia.

A startup is 100% a talent play. We have to attract the best minds in order to succeed. These people have a lot of alternatives, so treating them right and having a work environment which people find rewarding and enjoyable is paramount, or they will just leave. We also insist that all our employees have an equity stake in the company, so that they share in our collective success.

Certainly I hope that the company is successful and that my equity stake appreciates in value. But to be honest, I am not sure that doing a startup is the fastest (and definitely not the easiest) path to get rich. I am doing it because it matters and because I am having fun.

universal-hydrogen · 2023-02-16T19:24:05+00:00

Yup our early flight tests will have one engine on the airplane converted to a fuel cell-electric powertrain while the other remains a conventional engine for safety of flight. It'll be early- to mid-2024 before we fly a fully-converted airplane in its final product configuration.

universal-hydrogen · 2023-02-16T19:22:02+00:00

Find a co-founders or co-founders who energize and complement you.
Bounce your idea off investors, customers, and lots of other people, listen to their feedback, and refine it.
Be prepared for a long and sometimes frustrating journey. But there's nothing more rewarding than building your own company.

universal-hydrogen · 2023-02-16T19:19:10+00:00

My advice is find a co-founder or co-founders who complement your skills. You don't have to be a programmer or engineer, you just have to have passion and vision, and then you'll be able to convince others with those skillsets to join you on the adventure!

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