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Heart aerospace completes first flight of largest electric aircraft
- chha 1mo agoAlso a short video on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEudbAjschs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEudbAjschs
- dagurp 1mo agoYou never get to hear what these planes sound like in these promo videos
- ElijahLynn 1mo agoTruth, they could have totally taken the opportunity in that video to demonstrate how much quieter it is, but unfortunately it has a soundtrack on it.
- ggreer 1mo agoElectric aircraft that use normal propellers are significantly quieter than their combustion counterparts. Here's a short video of some takeoffs and landings from both.[1] 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXm4TnaXDWc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXm4TnaXDWc
- ElijahLynn 1mo agoThanks for this! My local airport is so freaking annoying with all the Cessnas flying over our heads. I can't wait for electric to be the better choice. I don't think most pilots realize how annoying they are in disturbing the peace.
- ggreer 1mo agoI live near an airfield that has been in operation for over a century. If I found airplane noise particularly annoying, I would have chosen somewhere else to live. I find loud cars & motorcycles to be worse, so I prioritized being away from busy roads. I think pilots are of a similar mindset. New airfields are rarely built near populated areas, so what usually happens is that nearby land gets developed, people move there, then they try to get the airfield restricted or shut down. It's a similar story for other noisy businesses like outdoor gun ranges or race tracks. I can see how that creates resentment for those who enjoy such hobbies. They're probably thinking something like, "We were here first. Why should we have to change or leave?" I do dislike that leaded gasoline is still common in general aviation, so I look forward to a future full of electric aircraft.
- CableNinja 1mo agoFunny (stupid) story. Denvers original airport was built in the "middle of no where", for noise reasons. Continue on for 30 years and lots of housing built up around it. People start complaining about noise. City decides to move the airport. Moves it 30 miles away, in the middle of no where (now DIA). Yep, you guessed it. People start building close to the airport, and then complain about the noise. I fully expect it to move again in 15-20 years
- stephenlindauer 1mo agoHey! I’m one of the people who moved to that area. I could sit on my back patio and watch a line of planes land at night.
- nick238 1mo agoLaguna Seca, a fairly famous California race track, was opened in 1957 built out in the middle of nowhere. In 2024, people that moved near the racetrack sued to get it shut down. I know there's some level of caveat emptor when buying a house, and realtors are guaranteed to not have any showings when it's noisy, but maybe just spell it out and the purchaser needs to be made aware.
- quickthrowman 1mo ago> Laguna Seca, a fairly famous California race track, was opened in 1957 built out in the middle of nowhere. In 2024, people that moved near the racetrack sued to get it shut down. “I swear, the race track just materialized out of nowhere!” -A wealthy liar living in California I assume it was dismissed immediately since Laguna Seca is almost 70 years old.
- CableNinja 1mo agoIt was not
- nick238 1mo agoI'd be more worried about all the leaded gas that GA planes use. Oh no, there are all these old engine that can't use unleaded gas. The hobby pilots just have no choice but to continually dust the surrounding area with lead vapors. They certainly can't be forced to update their engines/aircraft. Cry me a river.
- ggreer 1mo agoThe reason they use old engines and leaded fuel is mostly due to FAA rules, not personal preference. Pilots spend a lot of time around airfields & avgas, so they want to get rid of lead additives as well.
- ZeroGravitas 1mo agoOne of the electric flight niches might be landing at night in areas that otherwise would be restricted for noise reasons.
- capty99 1mo agocould someone explain to me how that $5 spend is lying to me. i know elec is cheap, but that cheap?
- eliben 1mo agoDuring certain hours of the day in California, electricity is essentially free due to solar overproduction, which sometimes causes negative wholesale prices.
- cj 1mo agoI've never quite understood negative electric/gas/oil prices. Are you literally paid for agreeing to receive the energy?
- vlovich123 1mo agoYes, if you’re a battery in the system. Basically discourages generation because there’s too much supply. But this generally doesn’t trickle to consumers afaik.
- eliben 1mo agoYes. Counterintuitive, but it make sense when you take all the factors into account (such that completely shutting down and then later restarting turbines may cost a generator more than paying someone to take power off their hands).
- cogman10 1mo agoYup. What people have to realize is that power generation has inertia and can be painful to start/stop. But also, the power output always has to match the power demand. If you don't, you get either brown outs or over voltages. When you add sources like solar onto the grid, you end up with times of the day where high solar production pushes base load power generators to need to slow down or shutdown.
- robin_reala 1mo ago
- NitpickLawyer 1mo ago> It uses electric motors for zero-emission short hops up to 124 miles and backup reserve generators for an extended hybrid range up to 300–500 miles. I was wondering how they're gonna deal with alternate airports and "fuel" reserves, but it seems they also have generators on board (supposedly used in case of emergency / unplanned detours).
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- audunw 1mo agoI think the generators are meant for intentional longer range trips as well. You get the cost savings for a big share of the trip even if you have to use the generators for part of it.
- NitpickLawyer 1mo agoYeah, could be. The article linked here had very few details on the generators, besides calling it "hybrid electric" which led me to google a bit and found those ranges, but not additional info on how it'll be used. I guess we'll find out mroe when they start flying routes.
- vel0city 1mo agoAt 120 miles of useful pure electric range, I can't imagine there are many US corridors where that pure electric range makes sense. That's still a range where the door to door time of a car can still win. I wonder why they don't push the idea of it being a hybrid more, as it seems to me a lot of useful routes are going to rely on the generators. I'd love to see something that can do around 250mi. It would be nice to electrify transit in the Texas Triangle if we end up never being able to actually build useful HSR. I wish them luck on continuing to try!
- kevin_thibedeau 1mo agoIsland hopping is the usual sales pitch for these planes.
- SoftTalker 1mo agoMaybe from mainland to islands if there's enough range for the round-trip. Otherwise many islands are not going to have the electrical infrastructure to handle the charging demands.
- rootusrootus 1mo agoI would not expect the charging demands to be that big a deal on a plane this small, at least. I would guess the battery is about the same size as a modern long range electric pickup. A garden variety 400 kW fast charger would probably be sufficient. Surely any island big enough for a proper airport could handle that.
- SoftTalker 1mo agoI guess it depends. Some island airports aren't much more than a landing strip.
- adrianN 1mo agoPlopping down solar panels and big batteries for an of-grid charger for these planes seems like a solvable problem.
- Aboutplants 1mo agoVTOL aircraft have the same distance capabilities and make more sense in a lot more scenarios than this, with way more flexibility. It’s obviously larger but I’m just not sure of potential advantages over other modes of transport currently available and in the near future
- wffurr 1mo agoAren't VTOL aircraft significantly more complex and riskier to operate than fixed-wing prop aircraft? There's certainly many fewer moving parts and tricky transitions from hover to airfoil flight regime.
- voakbasda 1mo agoAnd there’s that whole pesky problem of not being able to glide to a safe landing when something goes catastrophically wrong.
- catketch 1mo agothat varies with the design (they could have small fixed wings). Beta have full-airframe ballistic parachutes i believe. That is feasible at least for smaller aircraft.
- alistairSH 1mo agoIIRC, the fastest and heaviest plane with a ballistic parachute system is the Cirrus jet, which is both lighter and slower than a typical commercial twin-engine turbo-prop (looked at the King Air and the Dash 8 to cover small corporate and larger commercial workhorse). Not saying a parachute couldn't be designed to work, but there isn't an existing option today.
- alistairSH 1mo agoA quick search of Osprey Class A mishaps puts it slightly ahead (better off) than Blackhawk or Super Stallion. But a way worse record when compared to the fixed-wing C-130. Both comparisons are per 100k flight hours. Some of that risk can possibly be mitigated with a rotating engine, but fixed wing, similar to the Bell Valor. Possibly, because AFAIK, the Valor is the only plane like this and it's just a PoC.
- spongebobstoes 1mo agocould we relax the security around electric planes, because they don't carry as much highly explosive material? that could make it much more convenient and appealing as a travel method
- hollow-moe 1mo agoNope, because we all know about the race to the bottom of all companies and the littlest crack or wiggle room will be used to save a penny and kill people.
- SoftTalker 1mo agoYou don't see megawatt-hours of energy in batteries as potentially dangerous?
- datadrivenangel 1mo agoJetfuel is dense and energetic.
- SoftTalker 1mo agoYes it is. And there's no getting around that, a battery is just chemically-stored energy, the same in that sense as kerosene.
- rootusrootus 1mo agoI'd be stunned if they put a MWh of battery on a plane. This plane in particular only has a range of 120 miles electric-only, so it probably has a pack roughly similar to a modern electric pickup. 200 kWh plus or minus. By comparison, a regular regional jet probably has around 40 MWh of energy in jet fuel.
- SoftTalker 1mo ago[dead]
- 1mo ago
- idontwantthis 1mo agoElectric regional air travel is something I’m really excited about.
- thejackgoode 1mo agoYour user handle complements the message perfectly
- dagurp 1mo agoI'd prefer a train but since I live in Iceland this would be perfect.
- peterdsharpe 1mo ago> Largest Electric Aircraft "Largest" is just straight-up a false claim. [Solar Impulse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Impulse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Impulse) and [Helios](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Helios_Prototype#Specifications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Helios_Prototype...) were electric and had over double the wingspan, just to name a few of the ~dozen examples. Heart's engineers should be proud of this genuinely impressive accomplishment, but they need to rein in whoever is writing their PR pieces.
- ramesh31 1mo ago>"Largest" is just straight-up a false claim. Largest in terms of takeoff weight. Wingspan is a pretty meaningless metric for "largest aircraft". By that logic the planes you linked are larger than a 737.
- peterdsharpe 1mo agoThere is a word for that. It is "heaviest", not "largest".
- hersko 1mo agoIt's largest based on length and mass as well. Why only look at wingspan/width?
- red75prime 1mo agoI guess it's the largest by its useful load.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- balderdash 1mo agobeta also seems to do their flight testing in plattsburgh, ny, anyone know why?
- gok 1mo agoNew York State is funding Plattsburgh as an electric aviation R&D hub, and actually gave BETA $20M in a grant.
- moralestapia 1mo agoElectric aircraft makes no economic sense, but I'd want to see them flying one day nonetheless.
- datadrivenangel 1mo agoFor short haul they make sense at high fuel prices. And for medium haul they make sense if you can get beamed power working.
- toasty228 1mo ago> Electric aircraft makes no economic sense You better start working on them now if you want them to be ready when they'll make economical sense, which might be in a not so distant future
- ggreer 1mo agoAround 15-20% of the cost of the lifetime of a jet aircraft is fuel. Electricity is much cheaper than fuel, so that would mean significantly lower ticket prices. Of course, such aircraft can only fly on routes shorter than their maximum range, so they will only compete with jets/turboprops on regional flights. Even if the initial cost of an electric plane is higher than a combustion equivalent, the cost of the aircraft itself is only 5% of its lifetime cost. So an electric aircraft's purchase price could be twice as much and still represent a cost savings for an airline. And that's not even counting other advantages such as reduced maintenance needs for EVs.
- bilsbie 1mo agoIt’s funny they tell you the weight at takeoff. That’s uh not changing.
- tyromaniac 1mo agoPresumably the generators have fuel that can be depleted
- Gravityloss 1mo agoLots of places have water or mountains preventing car or train travel or making it go the long way around. Ferries are slow. Those would be natural applications for this. Tallinn-Helsinki city pair for example. I wonder, if this can get approved or certified somehow now, if then modifications and improvements are relatively easy, as long as many aspects like the pilot interface stays the same. Battery technology improves constantly after all. As an example, going from the current 200 km range to 400 could make it very useful in numerous regions certainly.
- dizhn 1mo agoThere are really weird short hop routes like Adana/Mersin Turkey to Northern Cyprus and Bahrain to Dammam (Saudi). The latter trip is 1 hr by CAR. Gulf Air flies wide body aircraft on that route and the plane doesn't even have time to properly take off before it needs to start landing. They hand you your juice box while you enter the plane and you never get to recline the seat or open the tray. Surreal stuff :)
- Gravityloss 1mo agoI've flown from Helsinki to Tampere, under 200 km, long long time ago. The cabin personnel had to push the refreshments trolley uphill and downhill the aisle as there was not much level flight portion. I don't really know why it even existed as a route. National carrier and I assume there was a subsidy involved. Back then there was not much security so there was a lot less overhead. Still, a direct train route and road exists and all, so it was very redundant.
- dizhn 1mo agoThe Bahrain - Dammam flight might have something to do with being a necessary connection HUB for workers. The plane I was in was quite large and packed with workers coming from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. There's some quite weird routes in the Middle East. One time I took a flight from Bahrain to Istanbul via Omman or Doha can't remember which but going in the wrong direction for Istanbul. I believe the plane had made a stop in Abu Dhabi before Bahrain too. A flight with a bus like route.
- TSiege 1mo agoDoes anyone know if there is a theoretical limit for how energy dense a battery could be? I wonder if there is a possible future where some sort of commercial long haul flights could be done by a fully electric plane. I've never gotten a great answer on this, and maybe we don't have an answer for certain since battery chemistry is some sense is still early days
- tensor 1mo agoFrom what I remember on the topic, batteries are not yet remotely close to dense enough to enable long haul flights. Even hydrogen electric doesn't cut it, and hydrogen fuel is much denser energy wise than conventional batteries. Perhaps if solid state batteries become cost effective to produce at scale that would change the feasibility, but someone else would have to chime in there.
- margalabargala 1mo agoThe answer to this question depends heavily on your definition of "battery".
- xbmcuser 1mo agoLithium air batteries theoretically can reach 10000-12000w/kg though they have only reached 1200w in labs so far. Gasoline is 13000w/kg. We don't need to match gasoline as it is inefficient. CATL just got it's 500w/kg batteries for commercial aviation approved I am betting China is going to do the same with electric planes that it did with cars. They can't build a efficient enough jet engine to be competitive yet but they already can build the narrow body planes replace the jet engine with electric take over the market for short haul aviation once the battery densities cross 1000w/hr.
- skew-aberration 1mo agoWhere does 12kw/kg come from? A specific type of battery? That sounds like the energy density for lithium alone. There may be architectures like flow batteries which could get close for some chemistries, but a standard battery (intercalation of ions) cannot get remotely close, even in theory.
- dbuxton 1mo ago27 mins endurance (?) for $5 of power. Not bad. I rent a 172 and have been paying a $5/h fuel surcharge for the past few months due war in Iran - but at UK avgas prices 27 mins in my plane would be $55ish. Haven’t looked into the details but kind of crazy impact on economics of aviation if this size plane (10x 172 MTOW) can actually do useful short haul
- tensor 1mo agoI assume being electric that the maintenance costs will also be much lower. How much do you spend annually on engine maintenance?
- dbuxton 1mo agoWell I just rent so no idea. Not sure they will end up lower as presumably it will all need to be conducted by a FAA double-starred technician who is not just vibe coding it
- why_at 1mo agoI want this to work but this isn't enough to get anywhere. Aren't you supposed to have 30 minutes extra fuel minimum just as a safety margin?
- Tuna-Fish 1mo agoIt has a diesel generator onboard, which provides the reserve.
- dghlsakjg 1mo agoI’m thinking they got this wrong by an order of magnitude. The region they did this flight in charges ~$.25/kw. So they would have had to do the entire flight with 20kw/h or an average of 40kw of output. That’s 60hp, or about a third what your Cesnna uses on climbout. Even if you give them a very low price of $.10/kw then they are flying with less than the Cessna on climbout. Hell, a Cessna in level flight uses ~80 kw. In other words, they are claiming that they can fly this thing on a VW beetle engine, or the PR guy got the number wrong.
- danans 1mo ago> Powered entirely by batteries, X1 used approximately $5 worth of electricity during its first flight It's fun to look at the arithmetic behind this to pull out the assumptions. To lift a 25000 lb mass 1100 ft in the air requires just over 10kWh, but that's assuming no air resistance or friction, so let's triple the energy needed to 30 KWh. Let's add another 10 kWh for forward distance covered (assuming it was mostly gliding). Then let's pad it up to 50kWh for anything else. If they say that was $5 in electricity that implies an electricity price of $0.10/kWh, which is possible with utility scale solar. I'd guess the actual flight time was only 10 of the 27 minutes, 30 kWh used over 10 minutes is 300kW of peak power. 300kW seems very low compared to equivalent jet powered planes, which output an order of magnitude more power for a 30 seater plane. Even if the electric drivetrain is far more efficient than a jet engine it stretches credulity. Which of my numbers is off?
- learn_more 1mo agoI don't believe the $5 cost either.
- jmaw 1mo agoOoo, sneaky. Not being familiar with flight verbiage, I didn't catch the "27 minute mission" being different than a 27 minute long flight!
- coryrc 1mo agoThe jet planes are flying much higher and are loaded; I'm assuming this one was empty. That would account for the power discrepancy. Finally, I think you might be still high on the power cost. $.10/kwh is retail cost in the PNW, they might be, um, bullshitting a little and have purchased power at a very good rate at a particular time just so they could say $5. They didn't say every flight would be $5. So energy could have been 3x more than you estimated.
- SECProto 1mo ago> I'd guess the actual flight time was only 10 of the 27 minutes, 30 kWh used over 10 minutes is 300kW of peak power I would note this line from the press release: > its all-electric propulsion system delivered more than one megawatt of power. I assume this was peak during takeoff.
- M95D 1mo agoAir transport in general, not just this airplane, could benefit from a catapult or winch takeoff at airports. It could be electric, it would reduce the most energy-demanding part of flight and make takeoff safer. They could also use electric tugs to and from the runway, not just at the terminal.
- coryrc 1mo agoWhy do you believe that?
- alistairSH 1mo agoSpecific to the electric plane, you remove some of the battery weight, as that energy would then come from the catapult. But, as a general thing? I don't see it happening. There's a TON of complexity in a catapult system. Plus, the amount of spilled champagne in first class is going to ruin a lot of suits and blouses. Can't have that. ;)
- M95D 1mo ago> There's a TON of complexity in a catapult system. But it's all on the ground.
- xboxnolifes 1mo agoThe ground is usually where planes have their accidents.
- M95D 1mo agoAirplane tugs (electric) driven by airport personnel + ground navigation aids would decrease those too, and airplanes won't need to burn fuel waiting in line for takeoff at busy airports.
- alistairSH 1mo agoTrue, but you'd need, at minimum, a well-trained crew to operate. The catapult settings vary by take-off weight. Who manages that? Does each airline run their own crew (contract) as they do other ground services? Or does the airport run it? The airframes would have be heavier, beefed up to take that load. FWIW, the Navy version of the F-35 weighs ~5000lbs more than the AF version's 29000 dry weight (granted, that's also additional folding wing changes). It also costs about 20% more per unit. Anyways, it's all certainly possible. Just impractical without a real need. But catapult launch ballistic passenger gliders would be pretty cool.
- bilsbie 1mo agoGOOD POINT by my wife. Is there a super high density battery they could use just to have available to count for reserves even if it’s one time use. Just plan never to use it in normal flight.
- coryrc 1mo agoNo. The closest I can think is to have a solid rocket booster and that has obvious risks as well.
- bilsbie 1mo ago[flagged]
- meatloaf_man 1mo agowhat a useless comment
- coryrc 1mo agoThat's not that much higher energy density and, IIRC, low power density, so not powerful enough to be useful in an emergency.
- yownie 1mo ago>Chat told me this type might be an option: but why do you think this was a meaningful contribution to the discussion?
- mikestew 1mo agoBecause their profile says they are “always happy to chat”. ;-)
- Mawr 1mo agoA suitable one-time-use super high energy density battery would be jet fuel.
- ortusdux 1mo agoAll FedEx express packages in my area come and go via a dedicated twin-prop plane that flies 35 miles to the hub. I'm sending a package today, and $14 of the 54$ total is a fuel surcharge. I wonder if I will be seeing electricity surcharges in the future.
- echoangle 1mo agoDo you happen to live in Alaska? Or is this common in the US?
- sokoloff 1mo agoMost of the Fedex feeder aircraft are single-turboprop Cessna 208B Super Cargomasters (stretched Caravans). There are also larger feeder routes served by ATR twin turboprops, but most of the small out-stations are served by 208Bs for air freight.
- zlater 1mo ago[dead]
- ElijahLynn 1mo agoLink to the first flight on YouTube if you click through from the article: https://youtu.be/fEudbAjschs?is=707pjOJKf4chS4O2 https://youtu.be/fEudbAjschs?is=707pjOJKf4chS4O2
- NigelBatteryDes 1mo agolooks like an interesting and sensible approach, will have to see if I can pull together details of the battery system
- quickthrowman 1mo ago$5 of energy at even $0.10/kWh is 50 kWh. One horsepower is roughly ~754 watts. 50 kWh for 27 min at 100% efficiency means 111 kW sustained output which is 147 HP. The math is wrong, there’s no way this plane flies with only 147 HP. That’s roughly what a Cessna 172 has for engine power. Conclusion: AI wrote this article and it has at least one and probably several more errors.