Electric vehicle pioneer Chip Yates is upping the ante in the world of electric airplanes. Today, the world-record holder for electric motorcycles announced plans for an all-electric recreation of Charles Lindbergh’s famous trans-Atlantic flight in 1927. And Yates isn’t content with just retracing the path across the Atlantic. He’s betting that like Lindbergh’s, his airplane will fly non-stop to Paris. Yates plans on flying at least as fast as Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis, and for added challenge and recreation authenticity, he’ll fly relatively low to avoid getting an extra push from the jet stream.
Yates is currently preparing an existing airplane to serve as a test bed for his electrical propulsion system. The airplane is a modified Long-EZ, an efficient design from the desk of Burt Rutan. The first flight of the electric test bed is expected in July. And because it’s a Chip Yates project, he plans to set speed and altitude records with the airplane while testing.
“You could fly this route today in an unmanned solar craft at 80,000 feet being blown over there by the Jetstream, or in something incredibly slow, or in a balloon,” Yates said in a press release, “but that doesn’t get our society any closer to realizing long-range, legitimate payload, electric flight capabilities that everybody can actually benefit from.”
Keep reading: Wired – EV Pioneer Plans to Recreate Lindbergh’s Flight in Electric Airplane
Learn more:
- Speed record set for all-electric airplane – 204.4 mph
- NASA jumpstarts the electric airplane industry with ultra-efficient flights – 400 mpg
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