September 18, fully electric aircraft slowed down Front wheels lift off the ground on a runway in Washington state. However, it was not intentionally taken off. This test was the precursor to the actual first flight, which the company describes as “imminent.”

The 57-foot-long aircraft, which the manufacturer calls Alice, is only a prototype, but it’s a pretty sleek airframe. If, one day, a production version goes into service with an airline like Cape Air, the goal is that, given a distance of about 170 to 230 miles, her nine passengers and their To be able to carry a bag. There is room for two pilots in the front of the commuter plane, but he is certified to be the only one to fly.

Other companies working on electric flight, one of the ways the industry is looking to reduce its carbon footprint, are developing flying machines that look nothing like traditional aircraft. Joby Aviation’s air taxis, for example, have a different design because they can take off and land vertically. But Alice, made by a company called Eviation, looks a lot more like a normal plane. Here’s how it currently works:

battery in belly

Airplane motors require battery power to provide the energy they need. Naturally, the battery that does that is located at the bottom of the fuselage, and the fuselage is also a little wider in girth.

Batteries are heavy and do not have the same energy density as regular fuel, which imposes significant limitations on electric flight. The prototype battery weighs a total of 8,000 pounds, and these lithium-ion cells are cylindrical, the same shape used by some automakers such as Tesla and Rivian. For luggage, the cargo compartment is located behind the cabin.

Another attribute of aircraft design is the ability to achieve its intended mission (relatively short commuter flights) while utilizing battery power. His CEO and president of the company, Gregory Davis, said: “Our challenge is to get the highest possible lift-to-drag ratio.”

The aircraft has long, narrow wings and does not sweep backwards. A long, thin wing is said to have a high aspect ratio. “We need wings that are as efficient as possible,” he says. (For a point of comparison, look at the wing of an aircraft like the F-16, which is designed for performance and supersonic speed, not efficiency.)

When it comes to keeping weight to the minimum possible, Davis says the plane is mostly made of carbon composite materials. , which makes it more lightweight than other methods. Non-fly-by his wire aircraft use mechanical connections, like metal cables, to translate what the pilot is doing with the controls to the actual surface outside the plane. Fly-by-wire aircraft do the same thing using computer signals to disconnect their cables and other physical connectors.

props behind

At the rear of the fuselage are two electric motors that turn two propellers. These motors are manufactured by a company called magniX. The airline Harbor Air also uses his magniX motors to power a converted electric seaplane.

For the Alice aircraft, the rear power unit “can generate 650 kilowatts of power on each side, so the power of the aircraft at takeoff is 1.3 megawatts, which is great,” says Davis.

At this point, there is understandably a gap between the range of the company’s final production-model aircraft and the soon-to-be-first-flight prototype. “No batteries yet,” he says. “Battery technology, perhaps unsurprisingly, is the biggest challenge in electric aircraft.” It is expected that the industry (electric aircraft, electric ground vehicles) will continue to innovate as the development of the Alice aircraft progresses.

He calls the battery situation an “industry-wide challenge.” A prototype aircraft would be a good way to “demonstrate that the technology works together,” he says.

Certainly, Eviation and its Alice aircraft aren’t the only ones at work on this new frontier. Companies such as Beta Technologies and Joby Aviation fly electric air taxis designed to take off and land like helicopters, but recent flights have seen Air Force pilots sit in the cockpit and take multi-purpose trips to Arkansas. So the Beta demonstrator took off and landed. As usual. Others include Archer and Whisk. Finally, Kitty Hawk was working on a single-seat plane known as Heaviside, announced On September 21st, they announced that they were closing down the company.

In related news, a company called Heart Aerospace is working on a hybrid-electric aircraft, the ES-30. The Air Current aviation website details why Heart recently made the move from a small, all-electric aircraft to his larger turbo-generator-equipped 30-seat aircraft.

For Eviation’s Davis, he compares the current stage of development to NASA’s Mercury program, which saw the first Americans in suborbital flight in 1961, eight years before the Apollo 11 moon landing.Like Alan Shepard going to space with redstone [rocket]— it shows that we can do it,” he says. That’s the destination here in terms of making kids fly and something we’ll never think about again. We need to show that it can be done.”

See our fast taxi test below.