British officials say first step towards clear skies
Rolls-Royce's first fully electric aircraft makes its maiden flight. He spent about 15 minutes in the skies over the UK.
And Rolls-Royce followed up with a statement that the first flight of the Spirit of Innovation, as its electric plane is called, marks the beginning of a phase of intense flight testing: data will need to be collected on electric motor performance and thrust. Its power is 400 kW, or 544 horsepower.
This engine was powered by Rolls-Royce's most capacious battery ever used in aviation. The goal is to achieve a flight speed of about 500 km / h.
Spirit of Innovation is the fruit of the ACCEL program and stands for Accelerating the Electrification of Flight. In addition to Rolls-Royce, the program includes Oxford-based electric motor company YASA (owned by Daimler AG, which makes Mercedes Benz) and Electroflight, an aviation startup.
Half of the costs were covered by the state Institute of Aerospace Technology and the Ministry of Business, Energy, Industrial Strategy and Innovation. Minister Quasi Quarteng even made a special statement in which he hoped Rolls-Royce has taken a huge step towards a global transition to clear skies.
This is far from the first attempt to make aviation cleaner. A year ago, ZeroAvia, a startup registered by Russian-born entrepreneur Valery Miftakhov, sent an experimental hydrogen fuel cell passenger plane skyward. According to the creators of the aircraft, this was the first such experience in the world. However, back in 2016, a four-person HY4 aircraft made its maiden flight from Stuttgart airport in Germany. The HY4 was developed by researchers at the German Aerospace Center.
Last September, Airbus provided the first detailed information on three hydrogen-fueled aircraft concepts and pledged that they could be operational by 2035.
In 2016, Solar Impulse 2, a solar-powered aircraft, managed to orbit Earth. True, the flight had to be divided into 17 stages.
Gleb Gorbunov
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