This weekend's 20-21 September edition of The New York Times International carries a front-page story, "Electrifying flights in Norway", continued onto page 8 with a more sober, accurately descriptive head, "Norway's ambitions for electric flight."
The body of the story avoids gee-whiz posture and includes details of the Alia CX300, a single pusher-prop aircraft with fixed tricycle landing gear. Identified as built by Vermont-based Beta Technologies, it has a 50 foot wingspan and maximum speed of 176 mph, powered by five battery packs. The unit has completed test flight in the US and had its debut at this year's Paris Air Show, so has probably been seen by Mifnetters. A Stavanger to Bergen test flight is described in the story as a a joint experiment by Beta, Bristow helicopter operators and the Norwegian airport authority, Avinor, which operates 44 airports all over the country and provided $5 million for the test flight. For balance, the story quotes Canfield University Prof. Guy Gratton as pointing out that "The Achilles' heel" of electric flight is the battery. He added that "I am somewhat skeptical about how good their range of endurance and payload will be." Daniel Solon
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