Aircraft
Inside Heart’s Hybrid-electric Airliner Redesign
CEO Anders Forslund explains why Heart returned to a series-hybrid design
ES-36 render
The ES-36 returns to the series-hybrid design Heart Aerospace dropped in 2024, using two nacelles instead of the ES-30’s four.

For two years, Heart Aerospace promoted one hybrid-electric airliner concept while working toward another. The ES-30, with two turboprop engines and two electric motors spread across four nacelles, remained the start-up’s public design through August, when it flew an all-electric demonstrator it called representative of that airplane. But Heart had quietly settled on a different production design long before that flight, CEO Anders Forslund told AIN.

Heart unveiled the updated airplane, called the ES-36, on September 23 alongside a deposit-backed purchase agreement from charter carrier JSX. The 36-seater’s “series hybrid” propulsion system returns to an architecture Heart had dropped in May 2024 in favor of the four-nacelle “independent hybrid” configuration. It marks Heart’s fourth design iteration in six years.

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