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Electric Airplanes:Are We There Yet?

If anyone in the nascent e-flight business was surprised by this development, they were polite enough not to say so. The real electric airplane market remains a village cottage industry and I learned at Aero in April that the village is very busy indeed. The overarching picture is this: The certification rules are in place, or soon will be, to certify electric aircraft, battery capacity is improving glacially and two companies-Bye Aerospace and Slovenia-based Pipistrel-are set to deliver airplanes in commercial volume. Actually, Pipistrel already has, with about 60 Alpha Electro trainers in the field around the world. But lacking regulatory imprimatur, these have been more technology demonstrators than practical, useful airplanes.

Aviation Consumer Staff
Verified

In 2014-five years ago almost to the day-Airbus announced that it was bullish on the electric airplane idea and would certify the hybrid four-seater E-fan 4.0 for the U.S. market by 2020. In the meantime, it made a PR splash by flying what would be a two-seat trainer-the E-fan 2.0-across the English Channel.

Two years later, Airbus said, never mind. Not that it’s no longer bullish on electric aircraft, but it has moved on to an even more ambitious project in the form of an electric hybrid single-aisle airliner in partnership with Rolls-Royce and Siemens, the dominant force in brushless DC motors used for aircraft.

Aviation Consumer Staff