Heart Aerospace’s Heart X1 aircraft has just become, according to its creators, the largest fully battery-powered aircraft ever flown. Presumably, launching one of Tesla’s Semi’s off a cliff won’t count as ‘flight’. The Heart X1 demonstrator aircraft managed a flight and landing lasting 27 minutes.
It did this while using less than R100 worth of electricity, said the company. We’ve got no idea how to check that, but assuming it’s true, it could make short flights cheaper. First, though, Heart Aerospace has to get beyond the ‘demonstration’ stage and begin flying real humans around. That’ll still take a while.
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The company’s X1 demonstrator aircraft flew under an experimental licence from the FCC in the States. The flight included “a test profile that included taxi, takeoff, climb, maneuvering, and landing.” You already know that said test continued for nearly 30 minutes. It was a low-altitude effort, though, reaching just 1,100 feet (335 metres).
Even so, it’s impressive. The aircraft measures 23 metres in length and has a wingspan of 32 metres. It weighs a serious 11,350 kilograms, much of that battery weight. The battery/electric motor combo generated a megawatt of power in flight, but the company won’t be quite as ambitious when putting passengers inside one. At least, not right away.
Heart Aerospace says that its first pre-production aircraft, the ES-30, is currently in development. It’ll seat 30 passengers, but it also won’t be fully electric. Instead, it’ll use a hybrid electric system, presumably to keep passengers from feeling too much anxiety about the craft losing charge. Flight testing will start in 2028, and the company notes that several airlines have expressed interest in adding them to their fleets. It’ll still be some time after that before you’re able to climb inside one and zip off to Cape Town.
