World’s Largest Electrical Plane Flies on Battery Power for 27 Minutes
Heart Aerospace’s experimental electric prototype plane, the X1, completed its first test flight this week. It flew on battery power alone for 27 minutes, reaching a peak altitude of 1,100 feet, as Popsci reports. This was a strong proof of concept for the design, which will help inform Heart’s commercial plans to launch a hybrid electric plane by the end of the decade.
Heart has been pushing the electric plane concept for years, first pitching its smaller ES-19 plane and more recently switching to the 30-seat ES-30 design. Targeted for shorter-haul commercial trips of between 100 and 500 miles, the plane will carry a complement of 30 passengers and be effectively carbon neutral on shorter flights.
But before it can build that plane, Heart’s got to show the concept can work, and the X1 is off to a great start. On its first flight, it flew without issue, using only battery power; it flew from a regional airport in New York and back again.
Heart will now use this successful step to conduct further tests and help inform the design of its larger electrified fleet plans.
Electrifying the entire airline industry seems almost impossible in the near future, even on an ambitious timeline. Even a plane like the ES-30 isn’t going to be able to supplant larger airliners which can carry hundreds of passengers at roughly comparable cost per seat, although Heart claims its ES-30 will be 40% cheaper to run than similarly sized conventional aircraft.
But if battery tech continues to improve, and emissions incentives are introduced to encourage greener flights, maybe it would be possible. If these kinds of short-hop flights could be chained together, or rapid recharges made possible through battery swaps or advanced charging technology, perhaps it would be possible to take this kind of plane on longer flights too.
It would certainly help put a dent in the industry’s emissions. Other efforts to bring it to something approaching net-zero by 2050 include changing flight plans for more efficient flight paths and switching to greener aviation fuels with fewer pollutants.
Other companies exploring fully electrified plans include Rolls-Royce, Harbour Air, Joby Aviation, and Archer Aviation, among others.
