Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
(Phys.org) -- Last weeks record of the fastest ever manned electric aircraft was set by electric-vehicle record-setter Chip Yates. He already had credentials as holding the world record for fastest electric motorcycle going over 196 mph last year. As a test pilot this time around, Yates flew an electric airplane and achieved 202.6 mph in level flight. This topped the previous record of 175 mph last year by the electric aircraft Cri-Cri. The latter, flown by French pilot Hugues Duval, broke the record during the Paris Air Show. The aircraft was powered by a pair of 35-horsepower electric motors and a pair of lithium polymer batteries.
Test pilot Yates is now the first person to ever fly an electric aircraft faster than 200 miles per hour, in his test flight last week at the Inyokern Airport in Californias Mojave Desert.
The plane that he flew is called the Long-ESA, (for Electric Speed and Altitude). The aircraft is a modified Long-EZ, serving as a development platform for a new electric aircraft system which will be utilized for a flight across the Atlantic later on. The transatlantic flight is scheduled for 2014.
The electric Long-ESA, powered by a 258 horsepower electric motor, is being worked on by electric aerospace company Flight of the Century (FOTC), where Yates is CEO, as an R&D plane for development of the company's mid-air recharging technology. The company team converted Burt Rutans Long-EZ airplane (Rutan is an aerospace engineer) for the trial flight. In a two-month workup at the FOTC site, the planes gasoline power was converted over to electric power.
