MOSES LAKE, Washington — magniX and its engineering partner AeroTEC completed the successful first flight of an all-electric Cessna Grand Caravan 208B at Grant County International Airport (KMWH) May 28, 2020.
The eCaravan, powered by a 750-horsepower (560 kW) magni500 propulsion system, took place at the AeroTEC Flight Test Center at KMWH.
“The iconic Caravan has been a workhorse of industry, moving people and transporting goods on short routes for decades,” said Roei Ganzarski, CEO of magniX. “This first flight of the eCaravan is yet another step on the road to operating these middle-mile aircraft at a fraction of the cost, with zero emissions, from and to smaller airports. These electric commercial aircraft will enable the offering of flying services of people and packages in a way previously not possible.”
“I’m proud of the pioneering work performed by our engineers, technicians, and flight test team,” said Lee Human, president and CEO of AeroTEC. “There’s no roadmap for testing and certifying electric aircraft. This is a new frontier and AeroTEC is on the front lines developing the processes and best practices that will pave the way for electric aviation.”
The first flight is another critical step in the certification and approval process of the magni500 propulsion system, enabling future conversions of additional aircraft to magniX’s all-electric propulsion technology, company officials added.
This will make the P in A&P obsolete. Once a hybrid is developed all you need is 30 min to 1 hr of battery time and a NON CERTIFIED generator to replenish the CERTIFIED battery and electric engine. Both having orders of more reliability.
Engine out on takeoff will be a negligible chance and for good measure you can have several EV engines for mass redundancy.
The drones are also pushing and flanking all the sclerotic techniques and technologies used to allow for ever cheaper faster and better access to the airspace and better flight characteristics using AI, exponentially so per Moore’s law.
The “P” in power plant is still valid and proper definition to use for all sorts of engines. It meant just that propulsion. We use rockets too, aka Rocket Eze by Chip Yates. The Chinese, Uneke, electric trainer proof of concept.
Cute but not practical. A 4 seat Caravan with a 100 nm range and 40+ minute turn time between legs. Nice to see the $ spent on research but don’t expect to see them plying the tourist routes any time soon.
I would like to fly one though to see how it compared to the PT6 powered Caravan.