Where Swedish aero history is written

Thirty years earlier a shorter version of Anders had played football only three minutes from the hanger where the headquarters of Heart Aerospace is now located. But Klara Andreasson could breathe out. In California they got their first two million dollars after a couple of minutes.

In the 1990’s it was the Viggen fighter plane that ruffled Anders Forslund’s ginger hair at Säve airfield, home of the fourth largest fleet of military aircraft in Sweden, and close to his childhood home. A cold war hangar of 22,000 square metres, now a museum, was housed 30 metres underground, which Anders found fascinating. The young man later exchanged football for a doctorate in aerospace structures.

As a result a new chapter in Swedish aerospace history is being written. Sitting in the Heart Aerospace dining room, Klara mentions that since she went on maternity leave, their company has grown by almost a hundred people.

Recruit from Brazil and Japan
Anders has personally interviewed all the new employees, from all five continents. However, most are from Brazil, home of small aircraft manufacturer Embraer, and Japan, where Mitshubishi Aircraft Corporation, MAC, is located.

There are likely to be hundreds more employment interviews as the company aims to have 300 employees by 2026, a year when the ES-19, the first electric- powered passenger plane, will be in the air.

By then it will have been just over ten years since the drone revolution at MIT was at its height, in many cases led by the king of electrification, Elon Musk.

Developments at MIT convinced that electricity-driven passenger planes for short distances were fully feasible. “But not in Sweden. Here people didn’t believe in the climate benefits of small electric-powered planes.”

One development that made it more attractive to return to Gothenburg was that in 2018 Norway declared all the county’s domestic flights would be on electric-powered planes by 2040. It had previously made similar infrastructure investments in electric cars and shipping.

“We established that there was nobody who could build electric planes for the Norwegians. In which case, why not us?” asked Anders with a smile.

He responded quickly – not by looking for a job in Silicon Valley but by setting up a research project at Chalmers University. The project was called Elise and it looked into what was needed in terms of infrastructure to support regional electric planes.

Gustaf Alströmer and Bill Gates invested
In 2018 Anders flew a two-seater electric plane over Gothenburg, an experience that helped him realise that it was time to scale up the production of electric planes quickly, before other companies did.

This is where Gothenburg native and business angel Gustaf Alströmer enters the picture. Gustaf Alströmer was sitting on a lot of capital after selling his share in Airbnb, after which he had established Y Combinator, which invests in promising start-ups with sustainable environmental profiles.

Since 2005 they have invested in 3,000 companies, which are together worth around 400,000 billion dollars. Alströmer encouraged Anders and Klara to apply to Y Combinators boot camp, where they had four months to build up the company and present it to potential investors Out of 12,000 applicants only 20 were chosen – and Anders and Klara were one of them.

“Anders was busy making models in the kitchen and I left my job. We moved to California at the beginning of 2019 and by 18 March Anders was on the stage presenting our idea to 400 investors,” remembers Klara. How do you sell a company without a product, consisting of two people with a daring plan?

“We had our concept and a lot of data. As well as statements of intent from both Norway and Sweden through BRA, Widerø och SAS. The network we’d built through Chalmers also impressed the Americans.”

The first order from United Airlines
Planes cannot be built just anywhere. By a lucky coincidence in 2018 Castellum had acquired a 3 million square metre area at Säve airport, with the airspace above it. At this old airport, just a stone’s throw from Volvo’s plants, they aimed to invest in electricity-powered mobility.

”It was love at first sight when we entered the hangar,” says Klara. “We didn’t hesitate for a second, even though it was gigantic and there were only two of us. We bought our first fittings on-line and our parents helped out.”

They succeeded in getting Nigel Pippard from SAAB Aeronics on board and started to build the first drive line, which was demonstrated for the first time in September 2020 in front of Prince Daniel.

The big breakthrough same when Bill Gates’ climate fund Breakthrough Energy Ventures became aware of the Gothenburg company. They found investors who last summer invested a further 35 million dollars. At the same time, United Airlines and Mesa ordered 200 ES-19’s – an order worth tens of millions of dollars.

“Mesa identified the ES-19 as saving short-distance air services from being shut down, which was happening in the US. The business model for small planes crashed so there are now very many routes which don’t have air traffic. These stretches, of around 400 kilometres, are ideal for our electric planes. The fact that United was interested in our planes was a big deal,” states Anders.

Despite strong support there were still challenges. “It’s not just the electric engine, which is going to be much cheaper than the jet engine – there are also hundreds of other parts which have to be finished at the same time if we’re going to stay on schedule.”

Close connections to Northvolt
But happily the American money also provided clear processes to accompany the start-up’s different development phases, and guidelines on how not to focus on individual leaders.

The fact that Peter Carlsson, founder of Northwolt, is one of the company’s advisors is a great advantage.

“We’ve learned from Northvolt not to be too aggressive, and not too conservative either. We need to think about how batteries will work in 10 to 15 years, while we’re building planes that will last for between 20 and 30 years.”

Air traffic’s share of carbon-dioxide emissions (two to three per cent today) is increasing, while at the same time air traffic is essential if communities are going to flourish. We can’t prevent low and middle income countries from sharing in the benefits of air traffic.

“Instead we need to help them to stop imitating our history of massive, fossil-fuelled air traffic. Our electric planes will mean that country areas are not losers when it comes to climate matters. But for this, we need concrete political measures,” says Anders.

He nods at the hangar behind him.

“The reason that hangar was built was preventative. The, society made great efforts to protect people. Now we need to take measures to ensure that the planet stays habitable for us Now it’s mostly American billionaires who are investing.”

“It’s an existential question,” says Anders before taking us down to the hangar itself where the top secret skeleton of a ES-19 is housed, waiting for its remaining parts and will come into commercial use in 2026.

Text: Ulrica Segersten
Image: Heart Aerospace

The text was originally published in Gothenburg Magazine 2022

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