Muuv – a spin-off for long-range electric aircraft
Muuv is a spin-off from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and is developing an electric microlight aircraft of the same name with a hybrid propulsion system that enables flight times of up to five hours. Thanks to innovative technologies, the Muuv aircraft is not only signifi-cantly quieter and more environmentally compatible but also reduces operating costs by 50 per-cent compared to today’s microlight aircraft.
The Muuv company was founded in 2024 by Felix Ladwein, Florian Will and Thiago Costas. Its origins date back to the DLR/NASA Design Challenge in 2019, where Will, Ladwein and their team were awarded for their hybrid-electric light aircraft concept ‘HyBird’. Following this, several years of research at the DLR Institute of System Architectures in Aeronautics resulted in a solid technological foundation that led to the development and test flights of a demonstrator – on which today’s Muuv aircraft is based.
General aviation is undergoing a fundamental transformation, yet many of the aircraft in use today are still based on designs from the last century. Muuv is bringing a new generation of aircraft to the market – at their core is an innovative combination of battery-electric propulsion and a range extender.
Muuv’s technology is designed around the real flight habits of general aviation pilots: on aver-age, private flights of this kind last approximately 1.5 hours and pilots prefer to have more re-serves than the legally required minimum. This is where Muuv’s technology comes in: the Muuv microlight aircraft can fly fully electric for 90 minutes and, when necessary, this can be boosted up to five hours using the range extender. This allows for greater operational flexibility – offering both independence from charging infrastructure and significantly longer flight ranges than pure battery-electric aircraft.
At the Paris Air Show, Muuv and DLR are presenting the fully electric HyBird demonstrator – Muuv’s starting point. The model shows what a future-oriented electric configuration for light aircraft could look like. The concept was developed in collaboration with Airbus ProtoSpace in Hamburg and at the DLR Innovation Center for Small Aircraft Technologies.
Link:
Muuv GmbH
E-Mail contact-dlr@DLR.de
