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Maiden flight flags advent of the era of sustainable aviation
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Battery-powered Alice flew for a total of eight minutes, reaching an altitude of 3,500 feet
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DHL Express orders 12 e-cargo aircraft for its global aviation network
All-electric plane Alice has successfully made its historic maiden flight, signalling what DHL Express believes is the advent of the era of sustainable aviation. The global logistics company said it has already ordered 12 units of Alice.
Alice, built by Israeli-founded Eviation Aircraft, took off at 4:10pm from Grant County International Airport in Moss Lake, Washington state, flying for a total of eight minutes and reaching an altitude of 3,500 feet.
The nine-seater aircraft uses a battery technology similar to that of an electric car or a cell phone and takes 30 minutes of charging for a flight that lasts for one to two hours, according to a CNN report.
“This is history,” Gregory Davis, Eviation’s president and CEO, told CNN Business.
“We have not seen the propulsion technology change on the aircraft since we went from the piston engine to the turbine engine. It was the 1950s that was the last time you saw an entirely new technology like this come together.”
Separately, DHL Express welcomed the new milestone in aviation and its positive impact on the environment.
“Our compliments to Eviation on the successful first flight of Alice! Completing its maiden flight confirms our belief that the era of sustainable aviation is here,” DHL Express chief executive John Pearson, said in a statement.
“With our order of 12 Alice e-cargo planes, we are investing towards our overall goal of net-zero emissions logistics.”
Pearson said Alice’s range and capacity make it “a unique sustainable solution for our global aviation network” that supports DHL Express’ aspiration to contribute substantially to reducing its carbon footprint and ultimately achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
Eviation is working on a specialized cargo version of Alice, in addition to a “commuter” variant and an executive version, CNN said. The cargo plane will have a capacity of 450 cubic feet of freight.
Alice will be able to fly for one hour to two hours based on today’s battery technology, CNN reported. It said Eviation is targeting a range of 250 nautical miles (about 463 km). The aircraft maker said as recently as April that Alice would be able to fly about 440 nautical miles.
The plane has a max cruise speed of 250 knots, or 460 km per hour, less than half the 588 miles per hour maximum cruising speed of a Boeing 737.
Eviation, which was founded in 2015, hopes to use the information gathered during Tuesday’s flight to review the next steps and deliver aircraft to customers by 2027, although it warns that is subject to change, CNN reported.
“We’ve actually generated, frankly, terabytes of data with the data acquisition systems that we had on the aircraft, so we’re going to take a couple of weeks actually and review it to see how the aircraft performs versus our models and our analysis,” Davis said. “From there, we’ll understand what we need to do next.”
Eviation said it expects to be working on developing an FAA-certified aircraft through 2025 followed by a year or two of flight testing before it can deliver Alices to customers. The company is targeting Alice’s entry into service by 2027.
