We’ve covered NASA’s development of a little electric airplane since 2016, when staff at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center and Langley Research Center took delivery of a modified Tecnam P2006T fuselage that would be used to build the X-57 (aka Maxwell).
NASA received its all-electric experimental plane recently, the X-57, from Empirical Systems Aerospace (ESAero) of San Luis Obispo, CA. Based on the Tecnam P2006T, an Italian 4-seat twin engine light aircraft, the X-57 utilizes distributed propulsion wings with multiple small, electric motors.
The future of electric aviation seems so far off and yet so very close that I think the only possible similarity would be to compare it to the electric vehicle (EV) rebirth of 2008. But just as back then, how many get the importance of electric aviation and its most urgent breakthroughs?
While the subject of all-electric aircraft often kicks up heated arguments amongst our readers, it is still certainly an area to keep an eye on, owing to its potential for great market disruption (and an accompanying slashing of carbon emissions). The technology clearly has some stumbling blocks to overcome, though, … [continued]
