World's Largest All-Electric Airplane Flies for Historic 30 Minutes
A nine-passenger, all-electric Cessna 208 flies for 30 minutes
On a clear and gorgeous day in inland Moses Lake, Washington, the specially fitted Cessna 208B Grand Caravan took off for an expected 20- to 30-minute test flight.
MagniX emerged in 2009 to disrupt the air travel industry by making alternative power more attractive for owner operators. The company’s team includes members from companies like Airbus, Boeing, Google-X, SpaceX, and Tesla, according to its website.
The Grand Caravan is outfitted with magniX’s battery-powered electric engine, the Magni250, which turns 375 horsepower into up to 3000 RPM. The Cessna is a propeller plane, and the engine literally turns torque into propulsion.
The company’s CEO, Roei Ganzarski, said that for retrofitted Cessnas, which is what Harbour Air’s fleet will be, the range is up to about 100 miles. For concept and experimental aircraft being designed with electric power in mind, the range could be up to five times that. Ganzarski says the cost to run even the retrofitted electric fleet could be as much as 50 percent less than conventional fuel aircraft.
“The world’s largest electric aircraft just finished her first flight,” Ganzarski said during the broadcast. In the background, people grabbed phones to video the final approach. “You just witnessed history,” Ganzarski concluded.