100% Electric Airplane Sets New World Speed Record
On Wednesday, June 10, astronaut Maurizo Cheli set a world record while piloting the fully electric SkySpark. During an eight-minute flight at the World Air Games 2009 in Turin, Italy, he hit a top speed of 155 mph (250 km/h).
That’s a record speed for a 100-percent electrically powered aircraft.
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The SkySpark, which sounds like something out of Transformers, is a specially built Pioneer Alpi 300 aircraft. It’s powered by a 75kW brushless electric motor and lithium polymer batteries. The project is coordinated by DigiSky, an Italian engineering company specializing in aeronautical applications, working in conjunction with Turin Polytechnic University.
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Equipped with a liquid-cooled Valentino synchronous motor by Sicme Motori, the plane has been in development since September of 2007. But according to the SkySpark website this is only an intermediate goal for the plane.
It’s expected that the craft is capable of 186 mph (300 km/h). And while these speeds are barely significant when compared to some conventional planes, the potential is noteworthy nonetheless.
The SkySpark team hopes to keep improving the plane’s performance. Using a “hydrogen fuel cells powered engine,” they plan to increase the planes range…and of course its speed.
Maurizo Cheli , of the European Space Agency, is an experimental test pilot and the former Italian astronaut who flew aboard the NASA space shuttle mission back in 1996 (STS-75).
Source: Autoblog Green, TreeHugger
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June 18th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Ha ha, yes, ‘SkySpark’ is definitely reminiscent of ‘StarScreen’.
June 18th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
[...] First we had electric trains. Then electric cars. Now, airplanes. [...]
June 19th, 2009 at 12:03 am
Multi beno for the great post. SkySpark looks fantastic. 186 mph is really fast for such a tiny aircraft.
June 19th, 2009 at 7:20 am
Awesome!
June 19th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Fantastic! Tho speeds ” are not that significant” , well ,I would not exactly say that as all great ideas start with a crawl… er crawl? 186 MPH ? lol !
June 19th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
How much does it cost to buy a plane like that? Doesn’t look too expensive
June 19th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Nice, but electric RC planes are faster.
The speed world record for electric RC planes is 361km/h (224miles/hour)
http://records.fai.org/models/history.asp?id=4285
February 15th, 2010 at 8:26 am
There is no doubt that this is the future of the business aviation but for now they can not compete with the power of an actual jet engine.