Bye Energy hopes to follow hybrid trail blazed by auto industry.

• Author: Taylor, Mike
• Position: AVIATION

Bye Energy recently announced plans to develop an electric-powered system for aircraft and ultimately an electric-hybrid propulsion system for commercial aircraft application.

The Greenwood Village-based company expects to begin making test or "proof-of-concept" flights of battery-powered aircraft in seven or eight months and have a marketable product in about two years.

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CEO George Bye shared his company's plans, dubbed "The Green Flight Project" (www.TheGreenFlightProject.aero), with about 50 people inside a Centennial Airport hangar in February. Making his point, he gestured toward a metal cylinder no bigger than a 10-gallon bucket and a battery pack about the size of a milk crate on display next to a two-seat airplane.

"In the automobile industry we've seen electric propulsion and hybrid propulsion in the last five or 10 years," Bye said. "What we're trying to do is take that same technology and apply it in its unique features to general aviation."

The metal cylinder and rectangular box next to Bye were only mock-ups of an electric motor and battery, but he and his executive team, which includes former Cessna President Charlie Johnson as Bye Energy's chief operating officer, say the only barrier to making an electric-hybrid propulsion system commercially applicable is battery technology--and that is evolving at about the breakneck pace that the microchip once was, Bye said.

When they start test flights with an electric motor in seven...