The electrification of air travel is one of the toughest challenges we face in our push toward reaching Net Zero. Fortunately, innovation and passion for the challenge of transforming air flight are in the blood of Dr Tim Woolmer, director of Evolito & founder of YASA, who’s been at the vanguard of the electric revolution for the past fifteen years.
Dr Woolmer is continuing the aerospace innovation journey started by his grandfather and engineering hero Dr Bob Feilden, a member of Frank Whittle’s legendary WWII team, which invented the first jet engines.
Whether destiny is playing a role or not, Dr Woolmer is clearly a man on a mission: staring down the great engineering challenge of our lifetime: electric flight.
Dr Woolmer explains:
“It’s an incredible bit of history that 80 years later, I’ve had the privilege of working on the first electric aircraft to travel at these kinds of speeds. I think my grandfather would be immensely proud, and I think he’d be fascinated in the way technology is evolving as well “
The speed to which Dr Woolmer refers is the 354.5mph clocked by the Rolls Royce ACCEL project to break the world record for the fastest electric plane—using three YASA 750 axial-flux motors in the nose cone of a plane appropriately dubbed ‘Spirit of Innovation’.
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