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.
