Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Canadian Company flies World's First Electric Commercial Airplane

A Canadian company, in partnership with a US high-tech firm,  have successfully completed the first commercial aviation flight with an electric-powered aircraft.  British Columbia's Harbour Air (UK English spelling for those of you wondering about the superfluous "U") and magniX, the company powering the electric aviation revolution, today completed the successful flight of the world’s first all-electric commercial aircraft, announcing it on Dec 10, 2019.

The aircraft was a regular-hulled six-passenger DHC-2 de Havilland Beaver magnified by a 750-horsepower (560 kW) magni500 propulsion system.  The entire flight was video-recorded and much of it can be seen on the Magnix website home page at https://www.magnix.aero/.



The flight left the Vancouver Fraser River terminal in Richmond (YVR South) on the morning of the 10th, piloted by Harbour Air CEO and founder Greg McDougall. He now ranks in my books as one of the greatest test pilots of all time.  A CEO who actually puts himself out there for the cause of humanity?  Can we have a dozen more for a start please?

This historic flight signifies the start of the third era in aviation – the electric age. It will take time to sunset the internal combustion engine and jet engine ages so I won't be expecting to buy any tickets anytime soon.  A lot of this is to to the intense regulatory approval, explained by Greg McDougall on this video.