H3 debuts all-in-one hydrogen powertrain pods for long-range flight

France’s H3 Dynamics has presented its self-contained hydrogen propulsion pods for retrofit or line fit to drones and airplanes. They deliver enormous range and endurance figures without heavy batteries, and they mirror the approach Airbus and others are taking with commercial airliners.Batteries weigh aircraft down, they can heat up, and they take a long time to charge – but they’re very simple, easy to use, and they store enough energy for many use cases. Hydrogen is a pain in the butt at every step of the way, but used in a fuel cell powertrain it carries so much more energy than lithium batteries for the weight it costs that you can keep your aircraft flying for ridiculous lengths of time. To illustrate, back in 2020, we compared the world record endurance flights of multicopter drones running on pure battery power (1 hour, 51 minutes), a 16-liter gasoline-electric hybrid…

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