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The largest electric aircraft just flew [video]

• mmcconnell1618 15d ago
  Interesting decision to build the whole aircraft instead of the propulsion system only. I wonder what the decision process was between retrofit of existing turboprop frame vs. build from the ground up? I would expect the level of effort and certification to be much higher building from scratch even though you get complete control.
  • lbriner 15d ago
    Judging by the seats, perhaps making it as light as possible. Existing airframes are relatively light but let's be honest, they aren't trying to save 500g here and there when they have massive jet engines to get everything airborne.
    • lefra 15d ago
      I discussed with people working on aircraft components, and my understanding is that weight is a constant obsession for them. Propose a new system to Airbus/Boeing, and the first question they'll ask is "how much does it weight?" Every kg saved is a kg more of freight that can be transported (or a little less fuel used to keep the plane in the air); save 500g for each seat of a 200-seat plane, and you can put one more paying passenger in the cabin.
      • notahacker 15d ago
        Agreed. But for related reasons, aircraft aren't really designed for either the structural robustness or balance to deal with big heavy batteries, which is what motivated the clean sheet design.
    • rafram 15d ago
      https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-travel-briefcase-united-inflight-magazine-20180120-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-travel-briefcase-unit...
    • deleted 15d ago
      [deleted]
  • MBCook 15d ago
    It may be too hard to do a good retrofit. If you basically have to tear the entire plane apart and rebuild and recertify it to put batteries in the right places, maybe the costs aren’t worth it for potential customers. I know many planes use their wings as fuel tanks but given the weight of batteries maybe that doesn’t work. I agree it’s interesting. Not a small undertaking.
    • 7952 15d ago
      Generally all the weight of the fusaage has to go through the wings anyway so it is structurally more efficient to put weight on the wings in the first place.
      • Barbing 15d ago
        And they do that with fuel?! Neat!
        • dghlsakjg 15d ago
          Yup. On a 737 they can put about 8k pounds per wing. Even little planes like Cessnas have wing tanks.
          • Barbing 15d ago
            Wow wow! Might see planes just a smidge differently now :)
            • brucehoult 15d ago
              In sailplanes we add up to around 200 litres of water to wing tanks in single-seat gliders (empty weight typically around 280kg) to improve the high speed performance (typically up to 270 km/h these days) and ability to fly comfortably in turbulence. It's surprising what you can fly formation with, even without an engine [1] :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0icOICQLTc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0icOICQLTc Dumping (most of the) water before landing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4Yv-V7eozk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4Yv-V7eozk [1] this particular glider does have a small engine for takeoff, but maximum speed with the engine extended is 180 km/h and here they are flying at 280 km/h.
  • deleted 15d ago
    [deleted]
  • huurtehoog 15d ago
    Probably because they intend to sell aircraft, not electric motors.
  • woods42 15d ago
    I think an interesting aspect is that on normal aircraft fuel tanks have to be near the center of lift to maintain weight and balance as fuel is burned off. When using batteries, this is not really a concern, and I would think might lead to some more interesting designs. To be sure, if there is space in the wing, awesome - the batteries can now also be used as ballast though too if required.
    • rbanffy 15d ago
      Wings can also be excellent for heat rejection - in-wing batteries have a lot of surface per unit of volume and are constantly exposed to low temperatures. Which may result in them being too cold and you needing to spend power heating them, so someone needs to do the math on that.
  • imoverclocked 15d ago
    Aircraft design is very intricate. Change the CG, break the whole system. Fuel is often placed in wings because adding/burning fuel from your center of lift means your CG doesn't significantly change through a flight and you spend less on pumping fuel within the aircraft. With batteries, you are looking at a constant mass from the beginning of the flight to the end... so you can place it anywhere. Electric motors are orders of magnitude lighter than jet engines. Also, you don't need to pump electrons against gravity so placing all of that weight lower has handling/performance advantages. By using an airframe shape that is well known, they are reducing risk and appealing to existing pilots. By building it from the ground-up, they are taking advantage of differences between the tech. eg: all of that weight in the fuselage instead of the wings means that rolling is going to be much more nimble. Yaw might be affected as well, depending on the placement/moment of the batteries.
  • cpach 15d ago
    There are probably multiple reasons for doing so. I imagine some reasons are business risk, freedom to innovate, freedom to take a holistic perspective and improving the possibilites for raising capital. If you build only the propulsion system you would be 100% dependent of existing aircraft companies, which are heavily invested in jet engines. It would probably be much harder to innovate and make good design choices in such a setting.
  • chinathrow 15d ago
    These guys did that / are trying to do: https://www.weflywright.com/products/motor https://www.weflywright.com/products/motor But then again, they also ship now stuff for datacenters (facepalm): https://www.weflywright.com/products/densegen-3750 https://www.weflywright.com/products/densegen-3750
• tristanj 15d ago
  The interior of the plane is clearly designed by an engineer. They stripped everything down to save weight, passenger comfort be dammed. The seats don't even look comfortable. They need to hire an actual designer, if the plane weighs 0.5% more but has actual human usability that's worth it.
  • MBCook 15d ago
    But maybe they’re aiming at short haul cargo. And either way, wouldn’t that really be one of the last things to do? Just proving the plane can even get in the air and stay there for a useful distance on electricity is more important than how comfortable it is.
    • tristanj 15d ago
      The video shows dozens of seats, so they are not only aiming for short haul cargo.
      • mhb 15d ago
        And, unsurprisingly, the video also includes speaking where the head of the company says that.
  • dmurray 15d ago
    Really, a prototype airplane, the first of this size ever built with this novel propulsion system, had engineers involved in the design?
    • tristanj 15d ago
      You've missed the point. The engineers went too far optimizing for weight, to the point of sacrificing usability.
      • notahacker 15d ago
        What does "usability" mean in the context of a prototype short haul passenger aircraft? It's got seats for people to sit in... The competition in this market segment doesn't look like Middle Eastern airlines' first class cabin concept art, it looks like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_340#/media/File:Mesaba_Airlines_Saab_340_(3372416219).jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_340#/media/File:Mesaba_Ai...
• ck2 15d ago
  the concept of electric motors with ultimate "any" fuel flexibility for generators is definitely the future then we are not tied to global fuel politics and maybe airports will become far less toxic with leaded fuel finally being completely eliminated (and there is a Ycombinator video channel? never knew)
  • 10u152 15d ago
    Agreed, however only fuel for piston engine aircraft is leaded. Not many of them at a large commercial airport. More of a GA issue.
    • GuB-42 15d ago
      I still find it crazy that piston engine aircraft still run on leaded fuel. The only reason it is still the case is mostly regulatory. We can make compatible unleaded fuel, we could have done it decades ago, but it would have required costly recertification and maybe minor retrofits and the use of additives, and considering the small scale of GA, considered not worth it. Things seem to go in the right direction, with an unleaded alternative in the process of being certified. But aviation, especially general aviation moves at a glacial pace, usually for good reasons, maturity is important, but not poisoning people is important too.
• QuantumNoodle 15d ago
  These kind of startup excite me. More so than the "next killer app" or "look what we shoved AI into." Cheap electric transportation can finally offset USA's lacking rail commutes and attack Europe's short flight market (which is already cheap). Now we need bigger planes or more frequent planes and the next startup to solve the energy needs.
  • torginus 15d ago
    Btw, I kind of changed my opinion on AI. Finally, everybody can build an app, so we no longer have to pretend the people who built one and made it big are some sort tech pioneers pushing humanity forward. Likewise, if you're a nerd, you can spend your free time building stuff you thought you would never get around to. Yes, AI as marketed is a bit of a snakeoil, but much more real and meaningful than crypto and social media. And math nerds finally can get a high paying job that's not about peddling ads or figuring out how to make a hedge fund even richer.
    • danlugo92 15d ago
      Rare soulful HN comment
    • khriss 15d ago
      Good for you.
  • infotainment 15d ago
    > Cheap electric transportation can finally offset USA's lacking rail commutes I'm not sure how building an electric aircraft would help with this. Are people going to suddenly switch to commuting by plane? Fixing America's commute problem is primarily an urban planning one (ie, putting all the homes nowhere near anything) and not an insufficient-electric-aircraft one.
    • Waterluvian 15d ago
      Could you imagine the (rather justified?) NIMBYism for all the airports required for commuter flight? If rail can’t be done, flight definitely won’t fly.
• Robdel12 15d ago
  This is awesome! More of this in YC and less Flock's.
• gavinsyancey 15d ago
  > It's the first clean sheet airliner to be flown in any category, electric or not, uh, in the US in in the last 18 years. Uh, what about the Bombardier C-series (A220)?
  • ojbyrne 15d ago
    Wikipedia says “It was initially developed by Bombardier Aviation with the program launched on 13 July 2008 and had two years in-service as the Bombardier CSeries.” Hence 18 years.
• arijun 15d ago
  The noise wouldn't be significantly lower during takeoff/landing, only during taxi, right? Good for workers on the tarmac, but doesn't get rid of the largest noise pollution issue.
  • aidenn0 15d ago
    Noise at takeoff depends on the propeller geometry a lot. A necessary (but not sufficient) requirement for a quieter takeoff would be lower propeller tip-speed. One of the ways to achieve high thrust at low tip speed is to have larger total propeller surface. The best shot of the propellers is around 9s and these don't look like particularly large propeller blades, but there are 20 propeller blades compared to 8-12 that you might see on a 50-ish seat turboprop airliner. But it's unlikely to ever be quiet to lift 20 tons into the air.
• aliljet 15d ago
  To be clear, this is a hybrid aircraft, but it's still an awesome step forward!
  • rotringlvr 15d ago
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  • timbit42 15d ago
    The X1, which is what flew, is all electric. The ES-30, their proposed product, is hybrid.
• subpixel 15d ago
  I'm not sure I get the 'appreciating asset' point he makes in the video. How will the plane perform better in 10 years? Cool stuff regardless!
  • bamboozled 15d ago
    Better battery tech ?
  • projektfu 15d ago
    It won't likely perform better as it ages but it may continue out-performing a fleet that tends to hold its value. If the maintenance cost of the electric motors and batteries along with the turbines operating at reduced power is better than the maintenance cost of two turbines that are operated at 100% power to take off, it could really pay off, as that tends to be a very expensive part of the operation. Airframes also often appreciate these days, as it is very expensive to buy a new one and an old one is somewhat proven. This plane basically has to outperform a Saab 340.
    • notahacker 15d ago
      Turbine powered helicopters can appreciate in value if demand picks up because the tech doesn't move that quickly, as can GA aircraft that are already old because they're all cheap and rudimentary to start off with. (The supposed appreciating asset tends to cost a lot more than the asset appreciation to maintain though...) Fixed wing commercial airliners generally don't, because airlines' biggest cost is fuel and new aircraft are a lot more efficient than older ones Seems optimistic to think that a first generation electric plane will avoid that challenge: in theory if you're only operating on electricity the kinetic efficiency doesn't matter quite so much, but 125 miles range on electric power is really quite limiting and crucially newer generation electric aircraft would be expected to offer more electric range. I guess a lot might depend on how easily it is to legally retrofit better batteries to older gen aircraft. They'll want to sell for more than the market value of an old Saab 340, that's for sure...
  • agnosticmantis 15d ago
    If Teslas could be appreciating assets [0], why not electric planes? /s If anything, planes have real autopilots! [0]: https://www.businessinsider.com/musks-claim-teslas-appreciate-value-post-purchase-flopped-2024-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/musks-claim-teslas-appreciat...
• rotringlvr 15d ago
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• alberth 15d ago
  Is this EV or Hybrid? The founder seems to sneak in the word "hybrid", around 1m30 mark in the video below. https://youtu.be/nM86DBOqgPM?si=5unXLmPxk6M_kmuN&t=86 https://youtu.be/nM86DBOqgPM?si=5unXLmPxk6M_kmuN&t=86 Note: not being negative, I just want to ensure I understand correctly since the title might imply something else. Update: confirmed, it does use aviation fuel. > "The airplane will also include a reserve-hybrid configuration, consisting of two turbo generators powered by sustainable aviation fuel. The reserve-hybrid system is installed to secure reserve energy requirements without cannibalizing battery range, and it can also be used during cruise on longer flights to complement the electrical power provided by the batteries." https://www.heartaerospace.com/newsroom/heart-aerospace-unveils-new-airplane-design-confirms-air-canada-and-saab-as-new-shareholders https://www.heartaerospace.com/newsroom/heart-aerospace-unve...
  • luma 15d ago
    Hybrid after the first 125 miles, total range 500 miles. Their problem is diversions - an incident at the destination airport may mean an passenger aircraft may need to land at an airport which could be a couple hundred miles away. The hybrid powerplant throws the fuel efficiency numbers off so goal is not to run it unless needed, but they could not get certification without it.
    • misterderpie 15d ago
      For anyone looking for the reference, it's stated at 10:16 [0] [0] https://youtu.be/nM86DBOqgPM?si=BdoZzp1Dxa4S3C_9&t=616 https://youtu.be/nM86DBOqgPM?si=BdoZzp1Dxa4S3C_9&t=616
      • coin 13d ago
        Yes it's super misleading. All the marketing and title is calling it "electric" where in reality it's a hybrid electric-gas airplane with a 125 mile electric range. Aviation uses nautical miles yet they advertise 125 statute miles so the number seems bigger (125 statute miles = 108.62 nautical miles). It would be like Toyota marketing the Prius as an electric vehicle, then buried in their presentation sneaking in the gas propulsion. Same with Chrysler Pacifica (32 mile electric range).
• detourdog 15d ago
  I was just at Newport Technology preview where they demoed a ground effects aircraft drone. This was a scaled model and the final drone aircraft is designed for 12 passengers. All electric. https://polaristechbridge.org/bluetide/ https://polaristechbridge.org/bluetide/ https://www.regentcraft.com/ https://www.regentcraft.com/
• rpaik 15d ago
  I also saw this about a year ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T9cxv9ubRg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T9cxv9ubRg More of a replacement for the "helicopter market"...
• onjectic 15d ago
  I don’t see how a purely electric aircraft could ever beat synthetic jet fuel made with electricity. If this is a hybrid, I am curious where they are stealing energy from.
  • idiotsecant 15d ago
    It beats it by mostly not using the turbines. The turbines are there for long range diversions which should happen rarely enough to not really matter in terms of carbon release.
  • Tepix 15d ago
    Well, what’s the efficiency of synthetic jet fuel production? Is it still competitive? Can we realistically get lots of it, like ever?
    • brohee 15d ago
      Efficiency is not that that important in an era of negative price electricity. Synfuel made just from air and electricity is doable (both water and carbon dioxyde can be extracted from the atmosphere). And with 10% of what's spend on IA we'd be way out of the lab... Thankfully there are military budgets (synfuel makes sense on a nuclear carrier)
• AshleyGrant 15d ago
  The moment he talked about "remote pilots managing many planes," I closed the tab. Remote pilots sound great until something goes wrong, and things inevitably go wrong, not often, but they go wrong. I will never fly on any aircraft that does not have a minimum two-person crew on the flight deck. The ability to "feel" the plane is invaluable in an emergency situation. Frankly, just the fact that someone whose life is literally on the line doing the walkaround is an invaluable part of the safety of commercial flight. I was rooting for this company when I saw the news of their first flight. I am no longer rooting for them because it is obvious that their leadership does not understand the human element of commercial air travel.
  • jacquesm 15d ago
    Indeed, it also is a bit silly: they have enough on their plate just getting this plane type certified.
  • perilunar 15d ago
    > I will never fly on any aircraft that does not have a minimum two-person crew on the flight deck. You're missing out. Flying solo in a small plane is great.
• kronodeus 15d ago
  Practical challenges aside, I'll gladly file this under "things my physicist dad said would never happen" and call it a win.
  • bitwize 15d ago
    Mech eng dad here. He guessed something like this would probably happen, but wasn't betting on it happening so soon.
• tantalor 15d ago
  Did it fly? Most of the video is the workshop. Where is the airplane??
  • timbit42 15d ago
    Watch the end.
    • rpaik 14d ago
      Also, this video from Heart Aerospace focused on the first flight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEudbAjschs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEudbAjschs
• mandeepj 15d ago
  Hybrid! That's what happens when you build new devices around old infra. Steve Jobs didn't design the iPhone around Carriers; it was the other way around.
  • panick21_ 14d ago
    Controversial opinion I know but we should design things that can kill potentially 100s of people in the same way as consumers electronics.
  • timbit42 15d ago
    Steve Jobs didn't have to deal with FAA safety requirements.
  • mandeepj 14d ago
    iPhone was used as an analogy and was not intended to draw direct parallels. A new approach required new thinking about everything involved, including takeoff and landing. They didn't do that; that's why they ended up with the compromise of a hybrid. It was a sign, and they ignored it and went ahead. Imagine a design that requires - no traditional landing and takeoff, including no ATC; some electric planes are already built around that, but sadly not this one.
• merek 15d ago
  Maybe I missed it but they didn't delve much into the TAM. "Half of all flights in the world are under 2 hours." Then they give examples of Fjord-town hopping in Norway, or Island hopping in Hawaii, which seem very niche. Will they be able to compete in any of the busiest routes? Could it take me Melbourne-Sydney in 1 - 2 hours for < $100? I'd sacrifice some time and $ for an eco-friendly option, but obviously there's a limit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_flight_routes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_flig...
  • gpm 15d ago
    Batteries are rapidly improving (on many metrics, but the relevant one here is increasing in energy density). The range is apparently 125 miles electric, and 500 miles as a hybrid. That's not enough for Melbourne Sydney. Give it a couple doubling-times though (5 years total?) and it will be. Meanwhile aircraft take forever to develop and there should be enough of a market in shorter hall flights to occupy a scaling company in the meantime anyways.
    • ActorNightly 15d ago
      Batteries aren't rapidly improving. Every single battery that has proposed higher energy density also has downsides in max discharge current. We may get at best like 10% improvement over what it is today.
      • enquirewithin 15d ago
        It’s taken thirty years for lithium batteries to double in energy density, and the rate of increase has tapered off recently.
      • aidenn0 15d ago
        That's max discharge current per cell though. You are going to have a lot of cells in a plane like this.
        • 14d ago
• class3shock 15d ago
  Doing some math. Regional jets get somewhere around 45.9 seat miles per gallon (1). So 30 seats, going 125 miles would take around 80 gallons of jet fuel. This is likely low because all the jets listed are bigger and likely flying longer flights that are more efficient but just go with it. Jet fuel has a specific energy of 12 kwh/kg and a density of 6.7 lb/gal (2). So 80 gallons of jet fuel is 536 lb, or 243 kg, and contains 2,916 kwh of energy. Jet engines are not very efficient, so lets say only 30% of this energy actually ends up being used. So 875 kwh. Lets say we are using batteries that are 300 wh/kg (0.3 kwh/kg), which seems on the high side of what electric cars are using now (and that there are no efficiency loses in the electric motors or elsewhere). Now maybe I messed up my unit conversions but I think that means to carry the same energy onboard you would need 6,428 lbs of batteries. And you are still going to carry atleast 1,600 lbs of fuel on top of that. And you have the weight of both electric and conventional engines. I could see this reducing costs like they say but when many big costs are fixed (pilot, hangar, etc.) will this actually make sense? Will airlines fly something that has thousands of pounds less payload than a competitor but lower running costs? I don't know but it will be interesting to see. (1) https://airinsight.com/seat-miles-gallon-fuel-burn-update/ https://airinsight.com/seat-miles-gallon-fuel-burn-update/ (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_fuel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_fuel
  • ticulatedspline 15d ago
    This graphic always reminds me why it's so hard to beat gasoline and that batteries kinda suck. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#/media/File:Energy_density.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#/media/File:Ene...
    • kibwen 15d ago
      Energy density alone is a misleading metric, because what matters is how much energy actually gets delivered to the drive mechanism. It's actually not that hard to beat gasoline, because despite its excellent energy density, gasoline engines are only 30% efficient. First and foremost a gasoline engine is a machine for producing heat and noise, and only incidentally for producing forward motion.
    • 14d ago
• jmward01 15d ago
  'The first clean sheet airliner to be flown in any category. electric or not, in the US in the last 18 years' This is the statement that matters and why I think electric is a huge deal. We can't get new designs into the air. It costs too much and takes too long. Electric has the potential to bring the design cycle back to something reasonable. Electric engines, and the supporting systems around them, are just so much simpler so there is so much less to certify. Once we really start designing for electric, and iterating on those designs, I think we will start seeing massive gains very rapidly.
  • jcims 15d ago
    First time I saw an electric plane with the cowling off was something like this: https://www.wired.com/story/magnix-electric-plane-motor/ https://www.wired.com/story/magnix-electric-plane-motor/ So much simpler.
  • aidenn0 15d ago
    The 737-Max is only not a clean-sheet only because the selling point is pilots don't need to retrain, which is a competitive advantage when selling to airlines.
• walrus01 15d ago
  The interesting part to me is that a lot of current electric aircraft development seems to be waiting for battery technology to catch up. They're far ahead in terms of the motors, propeller, electric propulsion control system. The limitation is the battery capacity. Companies like Joby, Archer and others also seem to be taking the huge gamble that battery density in Watt-hours per kilogram will SIGNIFICANTLY increase in the next 5-10 years (before they run out of money/investors) making the range of their aircraft much greater, and more viable for commercial operation.
  • IAmBroom 14d ago
    As noted elsewhere in this thread: probably ain't gonna happen. Battery energy density increases are tapering off. We may already be close to the maximum possible (where close means within a factor of 2 or so).
    • walrus01 13d ago
      I feel inclined to agree with this based on my observation of batteries that can actually be purchased (not hype PR things where people announce a miracle 450Wh/kg batttery). The electric VTOL companies in this niche that survive may ultimately end up with something like a small series hybrid that uses Jet-A fuel and has a single gas turbine engine driving a generator, along with batteries, and electric propulsion motors. Electric motors and gas turbine in use to lift off, consistent lower fuel consumption gas turbine -> electrical use during level cruise flight, then another burst of amperage and use of batteries during the landing phase.
• sandreas 15d ago
  I wonder if these airplanes are using helium to "reduce the weight"... that is something I also don't usually on drones. Probably too expensive.
  • IAmBroom 14d ago
    Helium only reduces the weight proportional to the volume it occupies - which is why dirigibles look like big balloons. Filling a wing with helium would barely shift the weight of the plane measurably. Filling the cabin and cockpit would be bad for what I hope are obvious reasons...
    • sandreas 14d ago
      I'm aware of that. Just thinking of using ANY space, that can be filled - like all hallow room in the plane that cannot be made use of. I'm not an engineer, probably it is more reasonable to fill the remaining space with battery ;)
      • IAmBroom 10d ago
        It would reduce the plane's weight by a trivial amount, like eating ice cubes to lose weight (nutritional "calories" = 1000x heat calories). Also, helium requires airtight containment - which itself would add weight. Not belittling you; trying to explain the problem better for you.
• aidenn0 15d ago
  I'm surprised by the struts supporting the wing; that saves weight (probably important here), but at the cost of drag. Wikipedia suggests a rule of thumb of 200mph being the break-even point for struts vs cantilever, and I would guess this plane is supposed to cruise faster than that. However, I didn't see the cruise speed listed anywhere; does someone know what they are targeting? On another note, other than the struts, the design is reminiscent of the DHC Dash-7, a STOL airliner from the '60s that also used slower propellers (with gearing instead of an electric motor, of course) to reduce noise. That plane wasn't particularly fast either (240kts max speed).
  • kirrent 15d ago
    That sounds like the breakeven if you're holding wing geometry constant and want to compare cantilever weight cost to bracing drag cost. The real advantage is in allowing for thinner and higher aspect ratio wings like in the Boeing X-66 which was designed to fly considerably faster than 200mph and make fuel savings. I guess an additional advantage in this design is that the weight of the batteries is in the fuselage rather than the wing, so additional strengthening of some type may be necessary in either scenario.
    • aidenn0 15d ago
      I'm terrible at estimating aspect ratios, but the plane in the video doesn't seem to be particularly high aspect ratio. Since they will be presumably holding less fuel, they could certainly be thinner though. While poking around their website to try and find good still images from a top-down angle of their demonstrator, I did notice that there is no bracing in the concept images of the ES-30, for whatever that is worth.
  • dingaling 15d ago
    The Shorts 360, very similar to this aircraft in size, weight and structural design with a strut-braced wing, cruised at 216kt ( 249mph ) for 400nm with 36 pax, three crew and fuel for 50nm diversion and 45 min hold.
• mgaunard 15d ago
  I mostly fly flights that are less than 2 hours (I'm in Europe). Unfortunately as the crow flies that seems to be closer to 800 miles than 125. I'm in London and the airport itself is already 60 miles away.
• simgt 15d ago
  As he's explaining the battery-electric propulsion isn't the hard part, he's even selling their software at 10:40. I guess the point here is to be bought by an existing aerospace corporation to kick start a new electric division? Nothing they do here Airbus can't do with better engineering rigour, but it'd be instantly sabotaged by their corporate rats.
• alkonaut 15d ago
  Is the aircraft built in LA but then test flown in Plattsburgh, NY? It seems like a long way to transport a prototype on the ground for a test?
• ls-a 15d ago
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• DanielHB 15d ago
  Anyone knows the details why Heart left Sweden? I applied for a job with them a few years ago but never heard back so I am quite curious. They seemed to have a lot of former Embraer engineers from Brazil, I wonder if they brought them over to the US.
  • petcat 15d ago
    > In comments to Sweden's government regarding the EU Net Zero Industry Act, Heart wrote that: “The regulatory framework and access to financing is very attractive in the US.” > Heart warned that Europe needed to respond to the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act if it wanted: “to retain technology companies like Heart within the EU” 2 years later: > "We are deeply grateful to our team in Sweden for being part of this chapter of Heart’s journey, and for all the support we have received in Sweden," said Anders Forslund. "However, as our customers, partners, and investors are increasingly based in the U.S, we see greater opportunity in focusing our resources here. By consolidating our operations in Los Angeles, we can accelerate development, strengthen collaboration, and better position Heart Aerospace for the future." Looks like a combination of regulatory and business/operations made USA more attractive. [1] https://www.regeringen.se/contentassets/0a5c91ad1a1c4fdaaefb691873611660/heart-aerospace.pdf https://www.regeringen.se/contentassets/0a5c91ad1a1c4fdaaefb... (PDF) [2] https://www.heartaerospace.com/newsroom/heart-aerospace-relocates-corporate-headquarters-to-los-angeles-california https://www.heartaerospace.com/newsroom/heart-aerospace-relo...
    • ZeroGravitas 15d ago
      I wonder if the parts of the IRA they were betting on remained in place when Trump gutted it. Grid Battery seemed to mostly survive but not sure if there's as much crossover there as with EVs.
• sandworm101 15d ago
  I will give the heaviest electric, but it is nowhere near largestt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Pathfinder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Pathfinder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Helios_Prototype https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Helios_Prototype Wingspans basically double at 200+ feet across.
• cpt_sobel 15d ago
  Realistically, how long would it take this company to comply with all the relevant regulations (even just the local ones) before it can fly with human passengers? I imagine new safety guidelines would need to be written for wherever this aircraft is permitted to fly.
• simonmales 15d ago
  The default question in my mind is jettison batteries in case of an emergency?
• thelastgallon 15d ago
  I wonder if Aluminium–air battery can be used for flying. They are not rechargeable, but with zero cost of energy during daytime, a supply chain can be built. The design battery energy density is 1300 Wh/kg (present) or 2000 Wh/kg (projected): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium%E2%80%93air_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium%E2%80%93air_battery
• thelastgallon 15d ago
  With this range, a lot of flights in countries/regions with a lot of islands can be electrified: Philippines, Indonesia, Hawaii, Carribean, Scandinavian countries. Also, most countries are not that large. If we ignore the top 10 largest by area, possibly most of the domestic flights can be served.
• hasanpiker 15d ago
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• IceHegel 15d ago
  It's very interesting. On the one hand, it seems obviously silly, given that the energy density of a battery is still much higher than hydrocarbons. But the drone explosion, the economies of scale around electric power, are very attractive. Of course the biggest unlock in the whole equation is a fully autonomous flight computer.
• PreownedPlaid 14d ago
  [flagged]
• salsa_catsup 14d ago
  Energy density of liquid fuel, with efficiency of electric motor => fuel cells. ? I guess they've given up on those for some reason.
• unixhero 14d ago
  Widerøe? SAS?
• bgnn 14d ago
  I really hate the fossil fuel dependency of the current aircrafts. Time will tell if there will be a place for battery electric aircraft, and if there is, will the introduction be in the west where Boeing and Airbus duopoly is killing all the competition (i.e. Bombardier CS series saga). I won't say China will be more open as it's popular to do these days on HN. One hopes some other nations with less political power but enough industrial capabilities can do this for domestic flights (like Brazil, India, Indonesia..) in the future, if the global politics continues to go in its current trend.
• feb 17d ago
  Heart Aerospace (YC W19) just flew the largest electric airplane ever flown — a 100-foot wingspan, a takeoff weight of 25,000 pounds, and $5 of electricity to get it off the ground.
  • dghlsakjg 15d ago
    Nit: When they did the actual flight I did the math on the $5 worth of power claim, and it just doesn’t pencil out even at the lowest power rates in North America. Just to illustrate: at $.05 per kWh (which is less than half the price of electricity where they flew), you get 100kwh for $5. 100kw is what it takes to takeoff a 1200 pound Cessna. Probably about 75kw for an efficient cruise in that same plane. Still an incredible feat, but no idea where the $5 comes from. Maybe that’s just the power they use to get from the threshold of the runway to wheels up.
    • hmokiguess 15d ago
      "hybrid system (electric + conventional turbo prop)" there's your answer
    • projektfu 15d ago
      The takeoff roll is only a minute or so to lift-off, so it's possible. But also somewhat meaningless, as an airplane can take off for free in high-enough headwinds.
    • datadrivenangel 15d ago
      so for an hour flight it costs $5?
    • jacquesm 15d ago
      You can't convert between kWh and kW. 100 kWh = 6 MW for one minute... so there is plenty of power if the flight is short enough. They said the plane has 4 Tesla's worth of battery power, let's assume they are 80KWh packs then that's 320kWh that they could use for a short flight. That's a fair amount of juice, they definitely won't be flying long in a 25 ton aircraft without starting up the auxiliary motor but I have no doubt it will be able to get off the ground on $5 worth of electricity. To be fair though it is more likely to be 50 kWh just for the take-off, so that's probably where their $5 figure came from (at $0.10 / kWh). For comparison: a single gallon of Jet-A = ~150MJ. 320 kWh = 320,000 W for one hour so 3600 * 320,000 = 1150MJ, or about 40 gallons and I suspect that these electric motors are quite efficient. So it does pencil out, I think. Or maybe my pencil is broken and no doubt HN will correct my math.
• Scrimptech 17d ago
  Hope it's accurate. Sounds good to be true.
  • AmVess 15d ago
    It's true. Good? Nope. This thing will burn giant piles of cash in repairs, and that's not even considering battery replacement, which completely obviates the entire point of this thing.
    • panick21_ 14d ago
      Electric engines well known for requiring repair, unlikely jet engines who are known for being easy to maintain.
• kooi 17d ago
  From the video: Range: 125 miles all electric 500 miles with hybrid system (electric + conventional turbo prop)
  • ajross 15d ago
    [flagged]
    • runako 15d ago
      > 500 miles with hybrid system > the grueling two hour drives What country are you in, and perhaps more importantly, what roads are you driving on?
      • ajross 15d ago
        To repeat: the market is filled with fuel-driven turboprops. This only wins if it's better, and it's only better if it's cheaper. Is it cheaper? If it's cheaper they should say, and not spend time talking about "all electric" range in a regime that doesn't want aircraft at all. And sure, there are places in the world that don't have limited access highways. But the 125 mile range is already served very well by piston-driven lightplanes! Again, who's going to buy one of these vs. just continuing to run their 40+ year old Beavers or Caravans or whatever? Also: if the only market for your high tech electric superplane startup is backcountry work in Alaska, you're probably never going to get funded to begin with.
        • MBCook 15d ago
          Island hoppers? Very few highways between the Hawaiian islands. Or Caribbean. Probably plenty of other places. There are tons of places in the world with short haul flights today, even if good highways exist. Every one of those planes is a potential target for replacement. You’re arguing most short haul flights shouldn’t exist. Maybe do, but they do.
        • notahacker 15d ago
          I mean, for the all-electric distances it's pretty much a given that it's cheaper: fuel consumed is the largest item on airlines' expenditure. The bigger question is at what distance you start having to burn more fuel than if you weren't lugging batteries round with you. If it's [eventually] commercially competitive at 400m range it's going to be useful on a variety of routes currently operated by ATR-42s and Saab 340s etc, the sort of thing that's definitely not operated by 40 year old 9-seaters. If it isn't... well islands still exist, they're just a fairly small niche
• ElijahLynn 17d ago
  Thought this was a great watch, as a first time founder myself!