Harbour Air and magniX partner to build world’s first all-electric airline; seaplanes to ePlanes

Electric aviation technology company magniX and Harbour Air, North America’s largest seaplane airline, announced a partnership to transform Harbour Air seaplanes into an all-electric commercial fleet powered by the magni500, a 560 kW (751 shp) all-electric motor that delivers 2,814 N·m of torque.

magni500

Operating 12 routes between hubs such as Seattle and Vancouver and across the Pacific Northwest, Harbour Air welcomes more than 500,000 passengers on 30,000 commercial flights each year. Through this partnership, both companies are furthering the vision to someday connect communities with clean, efficient and affordable electric air travel.

Harbour Air first demonstrated its commitment to sustainability by becoming the first fully carbon-neutral airline in North America in 2007, through the purchase of carbon offsets. Through our commitment to making a positive impact on people’s lives, the communities where we operate and the environment, we are once again pushing the boundaries of aviation by becoming the first aircraft to be powered by electric propulsion. We are excited to bring commercial electric aviation to the Pacific Northwest, turning our seaplanes into ePlanes.

—Greg McDougall, founder and CEO of Harbour Air Seaplanes

The aviation industry currently contributes 12% of all US carbon emissions and 4.9% globally, all while providing few low-cost, fuel-efficient options for passenger flights under 1,000 miles. By modifying existing Harbour Air planes with all-electric magniX propulsion systems, the partnership will create the world’s first completely electric commercial seaplane fleet. A Harbour Air ePlane will have zero reliance on fossil fuels and produce zero emissions.

In 2018, 75% of worldwide airline flights were 1,000 miles or less in range. With magniX’s new propulsion systems coupled with emerging battery capabilities, we see tremendous potential for electric aviation to transform this heavily trafficked ‘middle mile’ range. We’re excited to partner with Harbour Air, a forward thinking, like-minded company that is dedicated to bringing environmentally conscious, cost effective air-transport solutions to the West Coast of North America. This partnership will set the standard for the future of commercial aviation operators.

—Roei Ganzarski, CEO of magniX

The first aircraft to be converted will be the DHC-2 de Havilland Beaver, a six-passenger commercial aircraft used across Harbour Air’s route network. Harbour Air and magniX expect to conduct first flight tests of the all-electric aircraft in late 2019.

DHC-2 de Havilland Beaver

This partnership follows significant milestones for both companies, including the successful testing of magniX’s 350 HP all-electric motor and the addition of a Vancouver to Seattle route in Harbour Air’s destination roster.

EasyJet Says Electric Airplane Service Could Begin Within A Decade

Airplanes emit large amounts of carbon dioxide and they put it high into the atmosphere where it can’t be absorbed easily by the world’s forests and oceans. Globally, airplanes contribute significantly to the total emissions created by the transportation sector. An electric airplane would keep all those emissions out of the skies but the technology isn’t quite there yet except for certain experimental aircraft being tested by NASA and short range oddities that are little more than drones scaled up to fly one or two people short distances.

Wright Electric has been working on a real electric airplane, one that can carry up to 120 passengers on flights of 300 miles or less. Such short hops make up 30% of all flights in Europe and in many other specialized markets such as Hawaii, where jumping from island to island is a regular part of everyday life.

EasyJet is a European airline that specializes in short range journeys such as London to Paris. It announced recently that is it working closely with Wright Electric and expects to begin electric airplane passenger service within a decade. EasyJet CEO Carolyn McCall, says the aerospace industry will soon follow the lead of the automotive industry in developing an electric airplane that will cut emissions and noise.

“For the first time in my career I can envisage a future without jet fuel and we are excited to be part of it,” she said. “It is now more a matter of when, not if, a short haul electric plane will fly.”

EasyJet’s executive Peter Duffy, says working with Wright Electric will help both companies understand what is required to make an electric airplane suitable for commercial use by focusing on such things as maintenance and revenue management. “You’re seeing cities and countries starting to talk about banning diesel combustion engines. That would have been unthinkable just a short time ago,” Duffy says. “As technology moves on, attitudes shift, ambitions change, and you see opportunities you didn’t see. This is genuinely exciting.”

Wright Electric claims an electric airplane will  be 50% quieter and cost 10% less for airlines to purchase and operate. The key to their plan is to mount the batteries for the planes inside conventional aircraft shipping containers so they can be easily swapped out a and replaced with fully charged units as needed.

An electric airplane for commercial service is not possible today because the batteries available are too heavy. But Wright and EasyJet are anticipating improvements in battery technology will make the batteries they need possible within ten years. Based on the steady flow of news about breakthroughs in laboratories around the world, they may well be right.

Source: The Guardian

Axial Stack Battery May Make The Electric Airplane Possible

People roll their eyes when they hear talk about an electric airplane, especially if that talk is about large passenger planes, the ones that move millions of people around the world every day. The sad truth is that commercial aircraft are some of the worst polluters in the transportation sector, even though improvements have been made in recent year and more are coming.

We can envision a small electric airplane flying on going a short distance — a few miles, perhaps — but a 747 loaded with 300+ passengers and all their luggage flying from Boston to Barcelona on battery power? That’s the stuff of fantasy, isn’t it? Not if your name is Luke Workman, a mad scientist type of inventor/experimenter/innovator. Workman is the father of such things as the Death Bike, a high powered bicycle with an electric motor designed for drag racing. He has also designed some of the most rugged, high density lithium battery packs available. He is regarded as one of the world’s best lithium battery designers.

The issue is not power units. Electric motors are more efficient that fossil fueled engines. They also are unaffected by altitude. They make as much power at 40,000 feet as they do sitting on the runway. The issue that is vital to an electric airplane is energy density. The most efficient batteries available today have 161 watt-hours per kilogram of energy density. Workman says the batteries needed to make electric airplanes possible will need an energy density of 400 to 500 watt-hours per kilogram.

Workman says he has knows how to make that happen and it won’t require a breakthrough in battery chemistry. Instead, it means making batteries that weigh far less than today’s products. “About 35 percent of the weight in the cell is current collection — sheets of aluminum and copper foil that are just there to get the energy in and out of the cell,” says Workman. “That’s a lot of weight that’s not active material. It’s a lot of weight a plane has to carry that’s not storing energy.”

“But here’s the trick,” says Workman, “I’ve come up with a battery design that weighs far less and handles heat insanely well — it just requires a gigantic, flat surface area. Like, say, the oversized wings of a supersonic plane.”This isn’t about using the area inside the wing or fuselage to store battery cells. His idea is to use the whole wing surface as part of a giant battery. “I wanna use the full available wing area for electrode plate surface, and conduct through the axis with the cross section of the full wing area.”

“Composite structures, to be strong, need a middle portion there to support the skin on the outside,” says Workman, “We can use the battery as the middle layer of the wing, and we can use the aluminum skin of the wing as a current collector to get power from the ends of that battery sandwich out to the motors. There’s a way to conduct that’s the hard way, and a way that’s incredibly easy, with abundant conductivity. In today’s small batteries, we conduct the hard way, because it’s the only way we can make high capacity, high power cells at that scale. This sandwich idea couldn’t work at the small scale, because you couldn’t get it up to a decent capacity.

“But give me an entire supersonic aircraft wing, and that problem just goes away. That huge surface area of conductive material would conduct extremely efficiently while generating almost no heat. And because there’s almost no heat to deal with, we could use higher density active materials that we can’t use in the automotive world. From quick estimations based off existing cell materials that are safe and have high cycle life, you can get around 13,300 amp hours per 0.2 mm of thickness for each foil layer. Nine-hundred layers would give us 3.3 kV nominal and around 44 megawatt hours of battery storage.

“Total weight would be roughly 104,000 kg, with an extraordinarily high percentage of that mass being active material and lower conduction losses than any currently existing topology despite its high charge/discharge rate capabilities. That gives us 423 watt-hours per kilo, well and truly in the ballpark, using proven materials we can get off the shelf today. And that’s if we’ve got 300 square meters of wing area, with a foil core about 20 centimeter thick and 1 centimeter current conductor plates on the top and bottom. The bigger this battery gets, the more efficient it becomes.”

That means the bigger the electric airplane gets, the further it will be able to fly and the more efficient it wlll get at carrying cargo or passengers. If there’s enough surface area, it could also be useful on large scale electric boats or for grid level power storage. Getting rid of packaging and the thick tabs that interconnect the cells in a regular battery can save a meaningful amount of weight on a large scale battery. But it’s the low impedance, low resistance conductivity path and reduction in voltage sag and heat production that lets you really ramp up the capacity of the thing and increase charge rates.

“I’m not going to build this personally,” Workman says, “not unless it was the only project I was working on. If any company wants to use it, they’re very welcome to and I’m happy to help.” Workman  is not in it for the money. He is far more interested in making decisions that benefit the planet. “The reason I’d never restrict anyone from using this is that we’re all sharing the same spaceship here. We either do the things we need to do to keep an atmosphere on this planet, or we fail the Darwin test as a species.”

The prospect of a zero emissions supersonic transport is certainly appealing. Replacing all those jet airliners that make hundreds of thousands of flights a day worldwide with a zero emissions electric airplane would be a giant step forward in the quest to reduce the amount of carbon emissions the atmosphere is required to absorb. That will benefit every person on the planet, whether or not they ever travel by air.

Source: New Atlas  Image credit: Luke Workman

Solar Impulse 2 Soars Over The Pyramids

It took 50 hours and 50 minutes for Solar Impulse 2 to fly from Seville, Spain to Cairo, Egypt. Only one leg remains in its historic flight around the world solely on electric power supplied by the sun. The airplane is constructed of carbon fiber. Its wingspan is larger than a 747 at 236 feet. It weighs just 5,100. Its wings are covered with 17,248 solar cells that provide electricity to four 38.5 kWh batteries. Solar Impulse 2 has four electric motors rated as 17.5 horsepower each. In flight, it cruises at between 45 and 60 mph.

André Borschberg, cofounder and CEO of the Solar Impulse 2 venture, says, “This flight across Europe… [touched] a large number of countries, very diverse in terms of culture, climate and geography. But in addition to all being on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, they have a common denominator: the potential benefit of using renewable energies and clean technology.”

In the 15 months since Solar Impulse 2 left Abu Dhabi, solar panel and electric motor technology have improved dramatically. Reports of other electric airplanes are beginning to appear in the news. The Sun Flyer looks like a convention trainer aircraft but has solar panels and an electric motor. NASA is experimenting with electric flight. Siemens says it has created a new electric motor that is lighter but 5 times more powerful than any before. It is working in cooperation with Airbus on electric powered commuter aircraft.

Solar Impulse 2 is similar to the original aircraft flown by the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk. It is a harbinger of things to come, many of which are inconceivable at the present time. Modern aircraft are marvels of engineering, but they also create significant carbon emissions, which are injected high in the atmosphere where traditional carbon absorbers such as land masses and oceans cannot contain them.

Electric flight will be a critical part of meeting the carbon emissions reductions needed to keep global warming from exceeding the 2° C threshold that climate scientists believe is the tipping point beyond which rising temperatures will spiral out of control, doing massive damage to the environment.

So a well earned salute to Solar Impulse 2 and the team that made its around the world flight possible. It is now just 1,471 miles away from Abu Dhabi, where the journey began. We will be sure to share that historic moment with you. In the meantime, enjoy the video of the flight from Seville to Cairo.

Source: CleanTechnica

Siemens Electric Airplane Motor Breaks New Ground

Siemens, Germany’s giant electronics company, has developed an innovative electric motor suitable for powering electric airplanes. The motor has 350 horsepower on tap but weighs a mere 120 pounds. That’s about 5 times as much power as most similar size motors. Siemens has installed the motor in an Extra 330LE aerobatic airplane. It used the plane for a demonstration run recently at Schwarze Heide Airport near Dinslaken, Germany.

The (nearly silent) demonstration was the first public flight of an electric aircraft with a 260-kilowatt power output. The company’s plan is reportedly to integrate the technology into the development of hybrid electric aircraft, in partnership with Airbus. According to a press release, a hybrid electric aircraft with 4 or more seats is now a possibility within the near future. The step up to multi-seat aircraft powered by electric motors is a major development for planes powered by electricity.

“This day will change aviation,” stated Frank Anton, head of eAircraft at Siemens’ central research unit Corporate Technology. “This is the first time that an electric aircraft in the quarter-megawatt performance class has flown.”

The press release says “the Extra 330LE, which weighs nearly 2,200 pounds, serves as a flying test bed for the new propulsion system. As an aerobatic airplane, it’s particularly well suited for taking the components to their limits, testing them and enhancing their design. Siemens and Airbus will reportedly use the motor in the development of regional aircraft. “By 2030, we expect to see initial aircraft with up to 100 passengers and a range of around 1,000 kilometers,” continued Anton.

“The first flight of our propulsion system is a milestone on the road to electrification of aviation,” commented Siemens chief technology officer Siegfried Russwurm. “To continue this journey successfully, we need disruptive ideas and the courage to take risks. That’s why the development of electric propulsion systems for aircraft is also the first project for our new start-up organization, next47.”

Source: EV Obsession

Electric Airplanes Getting Closer To Reality

Electric airplanes are closer to reality today, thanks to DARPA and some intrepid dreamers. DARPA is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. It was established in 1958 after the US was shocked to find that the dastardly Russians had actually placed a satellite in orbit before we did. Through the years, it has experimented with all sorts of goofy devices that were supposed to be able to find their way from Point A to Point B using only computers and sensors. At first, they were hardly capable of finding their way out of small room. Today, the technologies they pioneered are making autonomous driving possible.

Autonomous cars are now the private domain of Google and Tesla, but DARPA hasn’t stopped experimenting with weird transportation ideas that may impact the future. According to Gizmag, one of them is an electric vertical take off and landing (VTOL) airplane. It started that project back in 2014 with the X Plane project. Now it has begun Phase 2, which seeks to  construct a demonstrator aircraft that can reach a top sustained speed of 345 to 460 mph, hover with an efficiency of at least 75% instead of the current 60%, reduce the cruise lift-to-drag ratio from six to 10, and carry a payload equal to 40 percent of the X-Plane’s gross weight of 12,000 pounds.

The design for the Phase 2 X Plane is from Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation. It features wings that look like a collection of box kites assembled together — 9 in each of the rear wings and 3 in each of the smaller canard wings in front. Each section has its own electric motor which is controlled by a central computer. Electricity is generated by an engine borrowed from a V-22 Osprey. It is capable of producing 3 megawatts of electricity, which is the equivalent of 4,000 horsepower.

What’s the point? Keep in mind that the D in DARPA stands for defense. There are any number of scenarios around the world where a plane that needs no conventional runway would offer a significant advantage to our military forces. DARPA is not ruling out the possibility that a similar airplane could carry human passengers at some point in the future. The first test flights for prototypes are scheduled for 2018.

The DARPA Phase 2 X Plane is not fully electric, but a proposed VTOL airplane from Zee Aero definitely is. Founded by Ilan Kroo, who is a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford and former NASA researcher, Zee Aero has recruited a team of talented engineers, according to Electrek. Together, they are focusing on improving battery technology and control systems so the idea of an electric airplane can get closer to reality.  Elon Musk has talked about building an electric airplane. He says batteries that have a at least 400 watt-hours of power per kilogram will be required before electric airplanes are a realistic possibility. At present, the maximum power of lithium ion batteries is around 270 Wh/kg.

The Zee Aero electric plane also uses large rear wings and smaller canard wings up front with an array of motors for vertical lifting and forward motion. Kroo’s 2013 patent application describes it as follows:

“A safe, quiet, easy to control, efficient, and compact aircraft configuration is enabled through the combination of multiple vertical lift rotors, tandem wings, and forward thrust propellers. The vertical lift rotors, in combination with a front and rear wing, permits a balancing of the center of lift with the center of gravity for both vertical and horizontal flight. This wing and multiple rotor system has the ability to tolerate a relatively large variation of the payload weight for hover, transition, or cruise flight while also providing vertical thrust redundancy.

Will either of these electric airplanes ever fly? Maybe not next year. Maybe not in the next 10 years. But electric propulsion is clearly the way forward for human transportation. Don’t dismiss either of these projects just because they look like something from a another world. People once felt the same way about automobiles.

Icon A5 Is The Tesla Of Airplanes

A fully loaded Tesla Model S will cost you close to $150,000. For about $50,000 more, you could have yourself something truly unique, the Icon A5 — an airplane that can land on the water or the ground and then slip neatly into your garage, right next to that shiny new Tesla.

Icon is the innovative manufacturer behind the A5, a carbon fiber aircraft that weighs just 1,000 pounds and has a range of 450 miles on 20 gallons of gas with a 45-minute reserve. It has retractable landing gear and a 34.8-foot wingspan. It is powered by a 100 horsepower Rotax 912 engine. The two seater has a top speed of 110 mph and can reach an altitude of 10,000 feet.

The best part is, the Icon A5 is so simple to fly, an ordinary person can learn in just 20 hours — half the time required for a typical single engine aircraft. Icon hopes to capitalize on new FAA rules making ‘sport planes’ less regulated, and sports pilot licenses easier to obtain. Icon says it wants to “democratize” aviation the same way that brands like Apple, BMW, or Oakley have done.

FAA officials issued an airworthiness certificate for the plane earlier this year, giving it the go-ahead for commercial production. A production model of the A5 was tested this week on New York’s Hudson river, according to a report in the Daily Mail. The A5 will come with an optional ballistic parachute that brings the entire airplane gently to the ground in case of an emergency.

What is it like to fly? “It’s extremely graceful on the water and in the air, offers exceptional control harmony and visibility, is a joy to fly — and would not stall and spin no matter how much I provoked it,” wrote AOPA editor Dave Hirschman. “The feeling of putting the A5 into a bank is like the smooth cabernets and sauvignons of the Napa Valley where our flight tests are taking place. The control harmony reminds me of a DeHavilland Chipmunk or a T-38. Think it and the airplane obeys,” added Plane and Pilot’s Marc Lee. High praise, indeed.

The company says it has booked 1,500 orders for the A5. Expected delivery time is 3 years. Better get your order in fast if you want to be the first on your block to own one.

Integrated Propellers Could Power Electric Airplanes

In the same week when the Solar Impulse 2 — an electric airplane powered by the sun — began its quest to circumnavigate the world, NASA announced it has developed a new design that integrates many slow turning electric motors into the wings of light aircraft. The result is that electric airplanes may actually fly someday, although they will only be 1 or 2 passenger planes to begin with.

Integrated propellers provide a 60 percent boost in wing efficiency and a significant reduction in drag. The NASA project envisions 32 electric motors — 16 on each wing — turning small propellers. Each motor can be placed precisely on the wing for maximum efficiency and reduced drag, reports Jalopnik.

The pilot would have many options during flight never before possible. Each motor could be operated independently at different speeds to optimize performance, depending on the phase of flight. In cruise mode, some motors could be shut down and their propellers folded to reduce drag even further. Computers could determine the optimum speed for each motor from takeoff through landing. Having so many motors available would provide critical redundancy and emergency backup in case of failure.

With the government penchant for cool sounding acronyms, NASA is calling the project Leading Edge Asynchronous Propeller Technology (LEAPTech). NASA has mounted the wing on a specially modified truck at Edwards Air Force Base, where it can operate on a dry lake bed at speeds up to 70 mph. The truck has its own acronym, of course. It is known as the Hybrid-Electric Integrated Systems Testbed (HEIST). Researchers are focusing primarily on the takeoff and landing phases of flight.

After the initial research is complete, NASA plans to mount its experimental wings on an Italian-built Tecnam P2006T. Using an existing airframe will allow engineers to compare the performance of the flight demonstrator with that of the original P2006T. Because the technology is easily scalable, it could then be applied to small passenger planes and eventually be tried on commercial aircraft.

Will we be flying to the Bahamas on vacation aboard electric airplanes any time soon? Probably not. But when you consider that commercial airliners spew enormous amounts of CO2 emission behind them everywhere they go, the NASA research could prove to be enormously important for the environment.

Images: NASA

First Hybrid Electric Airplane Takes Flight

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have successfully tested the world’s first aircraft powered by both an electric motor and a gasoline engine. Paul Robertson of the Cambridge Department of Engineering says, until quite recently the batteries needed for a hybrid electric airplane were simply too heavy for the job. But newer batteries are substantially lighter, which has allowed research on hybrid powertrains for airplanes to take off, so to speak.

Using a lightweight single seat Czech airplane called the Song, Robertson and his team have replaced the plane’s normal conventional gasoline engine with a smaller four-cylinder gas engine and an electric motor. When full power is required for takeoff, both work together. But when cruising altitude is reached, the electric motor is shut down and the gas engine throttled back for maximum range. The hybrid electric plane is capable of flying much further than it could before it was modified, and much, much further than the few pure electric planes that have taken flight.

The new smaller engine can also be used to recharge the battery in flight so the electric motor can be used again to facilitate a takeoff later in the trip. Think of it as a flying Prius. As researchers continue to improve battery performance and reduce weight, the application of hybrid electric power to airplanes will likely expand to include larger aircraft soon.

Source: Gas2

Chip Yates World Record Electric Flight Gets Official

This stuff is great. We absolutely eat up all the advances in electric mobility and happily pass along to you, our Constant Readers.

Chip Yates is our generation’s Chuck Yeager. He’s a freakin’ hero, in other words- having set speed record on 200 MPH electric motorcycles, run at Pike’s Peak, and built his own go-fast electric airplane, already, Yates’ place in Gen-X’s pantheon of awesome is already assured. Still, it never hurts to make things official, and that’s exactly what happened just last week: the five (5!?) world records Yates set last year in his electric plane were finally officially verified by the Fédération Aéronautique International (FAI).

Awesome.

The best part of all this, however, might just be that Yates’ record-setting plane – which he calls the Electric Long ESA – could be yours for just $100,000! If that sounds like a lot to you, check out how the ESA stacks up against its peers …

OR: HOW TO MAKE A G2 SEEM STUPID

… so, yeah. Really not bad at all for the battery-powered plane. As for how that’s possible, consider that (like cars powered by batteries) electric planes offer a few performance benefits over their oil-burning brothers. Most prominently, internal-combustion engines need oxygen to burn fuel and generate power. As a plane (or car) climbs higher in altitude, there is less oxygen to use, so engine power and climb rate (speed) drop as altitude rises. That’s not the case for battery-powered vehicles, however, which don’t need oxygen and which can benefit aerodynamically from thinner air causing less drag. Indeed, Yates claims his plane will climb at a rate of 2,000 feet per minute until it runs out of power.

As for the wisdom might be present – or absent! – in running an EV out of power at however many thousand feet in the air, I’ll leave that to you, dear readers, to comment on. As for Yates, however, he has his sights set on being our generation’s Charles Lindbergh, too. Enjoy!

Source | Images: FAI, via Wired Autopia.

Buy it Now: eSpyder Electric Airplane Lands at Oshkosh 2013 Under $40K

Ultralight aircraft manufacturer Greenwing International has just released pricing for its latest all-electric airplane, the eSpyder – and, for just $39,990, you can park one in your garage today. In kit form, anyway.

According to GreenWing’s stated figures, the 32 hp electric motor can propel the eSpyder to maximum air speed of 68 mph. Peak efficiency, though, is found in an “economy cruise” mode that holds the tiny plane at 38 mph, which translates to about 90 minutes of flying time in between 2-3 hour battery charges.Granted, it ain’t Chip Yates’ baller ride – but it’s not bad, I think, for $40K. Keep in mind, though, that while this plane has already been certified by German aviation authorities (a first for an electric airplane, by the way) it has not been certified in the US. As such, the eSpyder will be offered as a kit-built plane, initially. The company hopes to offer it as a completed light sport aircraft soon.

Sharp-eyed readers will notice that this “production version” of the eSpyder is a highly evolved variant of the eSpyder than Wired flew back in 2010. 

Solar Impulse Plane Completes Flight From San Francisco to Phoenix

The Solar Impulse, a solar-powered plane that has already flown between Europe and Africa, has just completed the first leg of its American odyssey between San Francisco, California to  Phoenix, Arizona. The flight lasted 18 hours, but eventually the Solar Impulse landed safely in Phoenix. The next stop is Dallas, Texas, and from there it is on to St. Louis, Washington D.C., and eventually New York City.

As you may have guessed, the Solar Impulse is an electric plane covered in solar panels and is extremely lightweight. Despite carrying 12,000 silicon solar cells stretched across the 60-meter wingspan, the Solar Impulse weighs just 1,600 kg, or about 3,500 pounds. The Solar Impulse is so efficient that it uses as much power as an electric scooter.

The Solar Impulse achieves its extremely high efficiency partly because it weighs as much as a conventional passenger car, but has the wide wingspan of a jumbo jet that enables it to accommodate the solar panels that it requires.

The pilot, Bertrand Piccard, said: ”It’s a little bit like being in a dream,” he told reporters after landing.

The flight was so successful that was able to fly in circles for hours while he waited for the Phoenix airport to shut down commercial flight operations as a safety precaution. If all goes well, the Solar Impulse plans to eventually fly around the world in a plane powered by the sun and human ingenuity.

Source: NBC News

SportStar EPOS Electric Airplane Makes Its First Flight

Electric airplanes are a bit different from electric road cars, and are even more limited; running out of juice 15,000 feet in the air has more consequences than running out of juice on the highway. While they are not in use yet, electric airplanes are being developed and making progress, like the Solar Impulse which can fly quite far because it is equipped with solar panels. A more traditional electric airplane, the SportsStar EPOS, made its first flight a few days ago.

The SportStar EPOS utilizes a X90 RE-7 electric motor developed by Rotex Electric. It produces 50 kW (67 HP) and weighs only 37 pounds (17 kg). The 378 volt battery pack carries it for 1 hour and a range of about 150 km (around 100 miles). The battery bank was supplied by Dow Kokam, a manufacture of energy storage solutions. The SportStar EPOS cruises at 150 KPH, and has a top speed of 240 KPH, or about 150 mph with seating for two. While that’s fast, electric racing enthusiast Chip Yates still holds the speed record for electric airplanes.

This SportsStar EPOS will be exhibited at the reference European show, held from April 24th to April 27th. While pure electric passenger planes are still a long, long ways off, hobby fliers could soon have electric vehicles of their own to fly.

Source: TechVehi