The future will be sustainable. Many fuel-powered industries are shifting towards alternative solutions. Tesla manufactures electric cars, startup Bound4Blue harnesses wind power to change the shipping industry and Seaborg Technologies designs green nuclear reactors.
Let’s find out how air travel is taking up the sustainability challenge!
Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman!
No, it wasn’t Superman visiting this year’s Paris Airshow, but Alice, an aircraft which might as well have received the same reaction from the show’s attendants because just like the beloved American superhero it’s something the audience has never seen before – the first all-electric aircraft.
Alice Commuter / flightglobal.com
The future of air travel is here and its name is Alice
Alice Commuter is the first all-electric aircraft designed by Eviation Aircraft, an Israeli planemaker company.
Eviation’s mission is to bring on-demand transportation to the next stage by enabling emission-free air travel for the price of a train ticket.
The company is a member of the NASA, FAA and GAMA electric aviation committees which makes it a key proponent in determining the future of the aviation industry.
The company’s leadership consists of a team of entrepreneurs committed to building disruptive solutions: Chairman Aviv Tzidon and CEO and co-founder Omer Bar-Yohay.
Aviv Tzidon holds over 15 patents and is an accomplished entrepreneur. Omer Bar-Yohay is a Physicist with unique high power electric propulsion systems expertise.
Alice Commuter at the 2019 Paris Airshow / ainonline.com
Alice Commuter – State-of-the-art Technology
- Designed to take 9 passengers up to 650 miles at a cruise speed of 240 knots;
- Technical features: cruise altitude – 10,000’, energy pack Li-lon – 900 kWh, wingspan 16.12m, length 12.2m, MTOW 6,350 kg;
- Built from the ground up to be electric;
- At the heart of the design process is the passenger experience;
- Bigger cabin than a normal turbo-propelled aircraft;
- All-electric propulsion powered by batteries;
- Cutting-edge composite body frame to achieve lightness;
- Unique propulsion system: wingtip and tail propellers;
- Slim and slick design;
- High efficiency at cruise;
- Innovation in the fields of airframe design, battery technology and integration, advanced lightweight materials, thermal management and vehicle autonomy.
Benefits
1. Low operating costs
Building an electrically powered aircraft competes on all of the highest cost factors of the operational cost of the plane, fuel & oil and motor reserve.
2. Fast and Comfortable
All composite structure built for electric integration, extreme propulsion & aerodynamic efficiency and flight stability
3. Sustainability
Alice is three ways sustainable as CEO Omer Bar-Yohay said in a recent interview:
- It is economically sustainable because it costs the company only $200/flight hour to operate the aircraft;
- It is environmentally sustainable thanks to its reduced footprint (zero carbon emissions, energy efficient);
- It is socially sustainable – the electric engine is silent.
Awards
Eviation Aircraft received the following awards:
- Gold at the 2019 Edison Awards in the Aerospace Innovation category;
- Winner of the transportation category of Fast Company’s 2018 World Changing Ideas Awards;
- #3 in the 2018 Transportation category of the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company;
- Named the 2017 Wall Street Journal Live Audience Favorite.
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