Watch Video: Electra Aero eSTOL Aircraft Achieves “Take-Off From Almost No Runway!”

Elec­tra Aero recent­ly released a video show­ing how its hybrid-elec­tric test air­craft, took off from less than 170 feet on its first tri­al flight or just 10 per­cent of a typ­i­cal length of a con­ven­tion­al air­field run­way.

Elec­tra explained its Elec­tric Short Take-Off and Land­ing (eSTOL) craft, the EL‑2 Goldfinch, tri­alled ear­li­er this year at sev­er­al Vir­ginia air­ports. Although the eSTOL is designed to take off and land on airstrips about the size of a soc­cer field (300 feet by 100 feet), it actu­al­ly required “almost no run­way” at all!

Dur­ing the recent two-month tri­al, the Goldfinch con­sis­tent­ly took to the skies in just over half the max­i­mum space need­ed, reach­ing an alti­tude of 6,500 ft before land­ing in under a 114-ft stop­ping dis­tance.

Accord­ing to a com­pa­ny news release, the air­craft flew at about 28 to 29 miles per hour on take­off and land­ing, but due to its patent­ed “blown-lift design” using eight small elec­tric-pow­ered pro­pellers, it required lit­tle speed to get off the ground.

The test flights were pilot­ed by Cody Allee, from Man­as­sas Region­al Air­port and War­ren­ton-Fauquier Air­port in Vir­ginia. The longest flight last­ed 1 hour and 43 min­utes.

Cody Allee

With a range of 500 miles plus a 45-minute reserve, the eSTOL does­n’t need ground-based charg­ing infra­struc­ture, allow­ing for longer flights with­out inter­rup­tions. And because it runs pri­mar­i­ly on clean elec­tric ener­gy, the Goldfinch is much qui­eter than tra­di­tion­al air­planes, pro­duc­ing a noise lev­el of just 75 deci­bels at around 300 ft. Mean­while, the hybrid air­craft reduces pol­lu­tion, burn­ing 40 per­cent less fuel on a stan­dard 100-mile route.

JP Stew­art, Electra’s VP and Gen­er­al Man­ag­er, enthused, “This recent mile­stone is an incred­i­ble achieve­ment as we’ve proven that our eSTOL air­craft has the capa­bil­i­ty to do what we said it could do, oper­ate from spaces short­er than 300 feet.” Adding, “We will con­tin­ue to devel­op our tech­nolo­gies and fur­ther improve its take­off and land­ing per­for­mance.”

Elec­tra Aero aims to have a nine-pas­sen­ger com­mer­cial eSTOL air­craft in ser­vice by 2028.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.electra.aero

(Top image: Elec­tric Aero)

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