The Alice electric plane needs to be modified

It needs to be partially modified on Eviation’s electric aircraft, the Alice, whose development program is also hampered by a battery lit in the prototype. The slippage is getting bigger than originally planned, in 2021 it is good if the first takeoff comes together.

The electric aircraft of the Israeli-based company, developed entirely at the expense of private investors, was unveiled in 2019 with high hopes at the Paris Air Show, where those interested could already meet a completely finished specimen inside and out. They are already on track with the electrical machine project compared to plans. Alice should have taken to the air a long time ago, but this year it was even pushed back by the fact that one of the batteries in the prototype at the test site at Prescott Airport in Arizona caught fire in January, damaging the fuselage and causing serious safety concerns. raised. Because of this, “minor modifications had to be made” so that the rebuilt machine is already different from the one presented earlier.

Although there is no confirmed and detailed information on the changes, it is reported that the location of the electric motors also had to be changed. Omer Bar-Johaj, CEO of Eviation, expects the first take-off in 2021, and with a barely two-year test program in the second half of 2023, he says he could have a certificate of airworthiness. These problems suggest that Alice in her previous form was closer to a good-looking, investor-attracting concept than an actual test machine. At the same time, the promised specifications – a range of 1,000 kilometers with two smaller and one larger engine, a cruising speed of 445 km / h, and only 900kWh of battery capacity – are far from unrealistic with current technology. The batteries used are very similar to those used in electric cars. Their disadvantage is that they are very heavy compared to their capacity and the maximum take-off weight of the machine of 6,350 kilograms, weighing 3,600 kilograms, which is three times the payload.