After a period spent in testing and preparation, Eviation’s Alice, the world’s first electric aero plane aircraft to be powered entirely by electric propulsion, accomplished its inaugural flight with paying passengers. The successful launch of ‘Alice’ on Tuesday morning marked a historic moment in both the Aviation industry and the field of sustainability. The company claims that the aircraft can fly at a speed of 287 kilometres per hour for one hour on a charge that lasts thirty minutes. The aircraft can carry nine passengers. The company has notified the media that it plans to deliver the aircraft to customers by 2027.
Gregory Davis, president and CEO of Aviation, told CNN Business;
“This is old news. The propulsion technology in aeroplanes has not changed much since we switched from piston engines to turbine engines. This is a milestone in Aviation history.” The last time you saw a new technology come together was in the 1950s. That was the last time you saw anything like this”
After just thirty minutes of charging, the nine-seater Alice will have enough power to fly anywhere between one and two hours. Alice’s battery technology is comparable to that of an electric automobile or a cell phone.
The current state of the art in battery technology allows Eviation to aim for a range of around 250 nautical miles. Aviation has said as late as April that the Alice would be capable of flying around 440 nautical miles. The maximum cruising speed of the aircraft is 250 knots, equivalent to 287 miles per hour. For the sake of comparison, the maximum cruising speed of a Boeing 737 is 588 miles per hour.
Aviation has been making progress with Alice since its founding in 2015. The Business intends to evaluate the subsequent stages in light of the data collected during Tuesday’s flight. It anticipates delivering aircraft to paying clients by 2027; however, Eviation cautions that this schedule is susceptible to change.
“We have created terabytes of data with the data collecting equipment that we had on the aircraft, so we are going to take a few weeks and evaluate it to see how the aircraft performs compared to our models and our analyses,” said the researcher. We will then be able to determine what steps are necessary for the following step.”
The Business estimates that it will not be able to build an aeroplane that the FAA approves until 2025. After that, a brief flight testing period will need to occur before Alices can be distributed to customers. Eviation’s goal is to have Alice fully operating by 2027.
