The Electric Airplane Makes Its Debut

Take your everyday metal moni motoglider, trick it out with a custom battery pack and you've got the ElectraFlyer C, a small electric airplane that debuted at the AirVenture show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, last week.
The plane, which received its airworthiness certificate in April, features a 5.6 kWh lithium battery with a projected life cycle (the number of times it can be depleted and recharged) of 1,000 cycles. The battery has a max weight of 78 pounds and can be custom-built to fit the available space in an airplane. It provides juice for a motor driving a 45-inch superlight PowerFin propeller made of a foam core surrounded by an outer shell of carbon fiber and glass fabric.
Once in the air, the ElectraFlyer C cruises at 70 miles per hour. Top speed is 90 mph and the stall speed is 45. The plane can fly for 90 to 120 minutes before the battery needs recharging. When the battery winds down, just plug it into a 110V outlet -- your house is full of them -- and you're good to go in just more than six hours. Bump the voltage to 220 and you're flying again in two hours.

The Battery-Powered Plane Makes Its Debut

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This is a great idea! It's economical and environmentaly friendly. It would make small airstrips much more agreeable to neighbors. No noise, no aviation fuel storage...it's a win-win.

Soon We'll Be Flying Personal Electric Planes

A cozy crowd of several dozen engineers, venture capitalists, and members of clean-tech companies plotted the potential at the Electric Aircraft Symposium held in April in San Francisco, sponsored by Foundation Capital and held by the CAFE Foundation, a nonprofit aiming to advance personal air travel.

The meeting included Ivo Boscarol, CEO of Pipistrel, which by the end of this year is set to deliver the first commercially produced, two-passenger electric aircraft to customers. The Slovenian company's Taurus Electro can climb to 6,000 feet after taking off on a 30-kilowatt motor. Recharging the glider's lithium-polymer battery is meant to take about as long as powering a cell phone. Depending upon the weather and skills of the pilot, the glider can travel 1,000 miles in a day.

Personal, green airplanes set to take off

Before you know it, we'll be zipping around like the Jetsons! Personal flying vehicles may be way off in the future, but the navigation and anti-collision technology to make the highways safer is not far away. Some companies like Volvo are already incorporating these technologies into models you can buy at your local dealer. It's a bit sad, but the fact is, a computer can probably drive better than most people out there.

As for the personal aircraft, it's good to see that they are making it enviromentaly friendly. After reading the article, one has to wonder if the next wave of eco-friendly innovation will come from the European Union instead of the US or Japan. The next big breakthrough could come from an unexpected place...like Slovenia.