E-Fan 1.0 touches down at France’s Calais-Dunkerque Airport with pilot and designer Didier Esteyne at the controls Airbus Group’s E-Fan...
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| E-Fan 1.0 touches down at France’s Calais-Dunkerque Airport with pilot and designer Didier Esteyne at the controls |
The E-Fan’s flight of 74 kilometres [46 miles] between Lydd, England, and Calais in France was completed in 36 minutes.
The E-Fan is powered by lithium-ion batteries, which offer an increased battery capacity of 60 percent compared to the aircraft’s original configuration. The batteries drive two electric motors rated at 30 kW each.
Flown by test pilot Didier Esteyne, the E-Fan weighs around 600 kilogrammes [1,320 pounds] and travelled at a maximum altitude of about 1,000 metres [3,500 feet].
Esteyne started the process with an initial ground check of the aircraft’s on-board battery power and its two electric motors, followed by a rollout to the holding point adjacent to Lydd Airport’s active runway.
Demonstrating the flexibility of electric power, he shut down the motors while awaiting control tower authorization, then reactivated the motors for immediate thrust to access the runway and begin the takeoff roll.
According to Olivier Michaud, Aero Composites Saintonge’s flight engineer, the E-Fan demonstrator utilized its on-board lithium-ion battery system for a total of 3,200 seconds (53 minutes) from the aircraft’s power-on at Lydd Airport to its shutdown at Calais-Dunkerque Airport.
These lithium-ion batteries are composed of a total 2,982 cells integrated in the inboard sections of the aircraft’s left and right wings – with each set having 21 percent of their energy remaining after the historic Channel crossing, offering a very comfortable power margin.
The batteries operated at a temperature of 60 deg. C. during the overwater flight, well below the maximum authorized temperature of 75 degree Celsius.
Since its first flight in April 2014, the E-Fan team has constantly been working to improve the technology on-board. At the 2015 Paris Air Show in June, Airbus Group highlighted the continuous enhancements made to E-Fan in just over a year and a half, which have resulted in increased battery capacity, reduced weight and a new retractable landing gear.
Airbus is already working on the E-Fan 2.0, the production version of the two-seater, aimed at pilot training, of which maiden flight is scheduled to take place in late 2017.
E-Fan 2.0 will be followed by the E-Fan 4.0 four-seat airplane for full pilot licensing and the general aviation market. Construction on a final assembly line to industrialise these aircraft will begin during 2016 in Pau, France. Introduction of the larger E-Fan 4.0 will follow in 2019.
