MagniX and AeroTEC Put All-Electric Cessna Airplane Into The Air For First Time
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on GeekWire.
This is the introductory paragraph.
An all-electric version of one of the world’s best-known small utility airplanes hummed through its first flight today at Moses Lake in central Washington state.
This is a picture of another Cessna Caravan, that I took, as I boarded it in Kenya for a flight to the Maasai Mara.
The aircraft are very much a Ford Transit or Mercedes Vito of the skies.
- 2,600 have been built.
- It is still in production.
- The passenger version can carry nine passengers.
- Total flight hours are over twenty million.
- FedEx operates 239 of the type.
It must surely, be an ideal aircraft to convert to electric power.
This is a video of the first flight on YouTube.
The guy behind the project;Roei Ganzarski has just given a very optimistic interview on BBC Breakfast.
He emphasised the various environmental and financial advantages of the aircraft and if you can catch it on the iPlayer, it outlines a possible future for aviation.
I can see electric Cessna Caravans flying around the UK within the next couple of years.
Designing And Building An Electric Aircraft
Three of the designs for commercial electric aircraft under development are conversions of existing designs.
- Roei Ganzarski’s conversion of a Cessna Caravan.
- Harbour Air’s conversion of a DHC-2 Beaver.
- Cranfield University’s conversion of a Britten-Norman Islander.
This must make certification of the aircraft simpler, as you’ve just replaced one type of engine with a battery and electric motor of similar size.
The difficult parts of the design; the aerodynamics and structure are probably almost unchanged.
As MagniX are involved in the first two of these projects, I would suspect that they have come up with an electric motor, that fits what is needed for aviation very well.
But then electric motor design is changing, probably driven by the needs of electric transport from bicycles through cars and vans to buses, planes, ships, trains and trucks.
It should also be noted, that the Beaver, Caravan and Islander are all simple aircraft, with a long history of successful operation and a vast knowledge base amongst pilots, engineers and operators of how to use these aircraft safely and in a financially viable way.
Will we see other aircraft conversions from to electric power in the next few years?
This page on Flying Magazine discusses conversion of Cessna 172 to electric power.
May 29, 2020 Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Cessna 172, Cessna Caravan, Electric Aircraft, Flying, magniX | Leave a comment
The Longevity Of Light Aircraft
I am just watching the travel section of BBC Breakfast, where Cat Moh is taking a flight in a light aircraft to Le Touquet from Blackbushe.
The aircraft they are using is G-BJDW, which I have flown many times, when it was based at Ipswich Airport. It was the plane that many, like me, used for instrument-flying training in the 1980s.
I remember flying three Metier employees to Denham from Ipswich one day.
Delta-Whisky looked to be in good condition, as it was thirty or more years ago.
August 12, 2018 Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Aircraft, Cessna 172, Flying, Metier | 2 Comments
About This Blog
What this blog will eventually be about I do not know.
But it will be about how I’m coping with the loss of my wife and son to cancer in recent years and how I manage with being a coeliac and recovering from a stroke. It will be about travel, sport, engineering, food, art, computers, large projects and London, that are some of the passions that fill my life.
And hopefully, it will get rid of the lonely times, from which I still suffer.
Why Anonymous? That’s how you feel at times.
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