World First: Fully Electric Commercial Flight Completed
The worlds first fully electric commercial test flight was completed in Vancouver, Canada. The plane that completed the record first journey was a 62 year old refitted six seater aircraft. The pilot, Greg McDougall, took off from Vancouver and flew for just under 15 minutes.
The aircraft has a fully electric 750 horsepower electric motor. McDougall was quoted as saying his company made history by moving aviation into the "electric age."
Our congratulations go out to Doug and his team at Harbour Air. This is a fantastic first step to electrifying the air. Engineers have struggled for years to get a battery's energy density high enough for commercial flight. We're finally seeing some of the come to fruition. While this plane certainly wont be displacing any large scale operations tomorrow, it's the incremental steps that lead the world to better outcomes.
The li-ion batteries used on the plane were estimated to get around 100 miles (160 km) of range. Harbour Air are hoping to electrify the rest of their fleet which flies 300 daily fights.
Cranfield Aerospace Solutions based in England is another company working towards the goal of electric flight. However, they're a few years away from first flight, estimating their commercial flight program could start as early as 2023. Here's another demo of some of Cranfield's other projects. We're very excited to see what they come up with, and we'll be watching this space closely.