Aviation companies nowadays are more focused on bringing out contemporary electric planes in order to ramp up flight operations. In a similar way, an Israeli start-up, “Eviation,” has stepped up to develop an all-electric and luxurious plane, “Alice,” back in 2019, which was revealed at the Paris Air Show. Since then, the company has been making efforts to gear up for its first official flight. However, this week, the company successfully tested a high-speed taxi run for this aircraft on the runway, which has brought us one step closer to the first flight. Look at the video of this high-speed taxi run of the aircraft, which has been tweeted by the company:
Coupled with this, the aircraft has gone through some major changes in its design parameters since its inception, and the existing version contains a pair of 640-kW magniX motors, as you can see in the pictures. The motors have been housed on the sides of the fuselage, and due to these, the aircraft can fly at a range of 814 km (506 miles) and can cruise at around 407 km/h (253 mph). In addition to this, this luxurious plane can accommodate nine passengers and two crew members on board. Moreover, the maximum weight that the plane can take up is around 1,130 kg (or 2,500 lb).
It has to be noted that the plane was apparently ready to take its first flight at the end of the year 2021, but for some unknown reasons, it couldn’t make it to this deadline. However, recently, the test that has been conducted by the company to examine the taxi-run ability of the aircraft has made great strides. Specifically, the test was conducted to analyze the rotation ability of the aircraft by pulling on or off the nose of the aircraft during take-off procedures. Hence, seeing its first successful test, the company stated, “A great day for electric aviation. More to come from Alice soon!”
To that end, no information has been revealed as of now regarding the commencement of services of the aircraft, but seeing the progress of the recent test, we can say that it will be coming at any time soon.