Heart Aerospace has flown its X1 full-scale electric demonstrator for the first time at Plattsburgh International Airport in upstate New York. The 27-minute flight on 12 August featured taxi, takeoff, climb, manoeuvring and landing, making the 23-metre aircraft the largest battery-electric aircraft flown to date.
The X1 is the testbed for Heart Aerospace’s ES-30 regional airliner programme, a 30-seat hybrid-electric aircraft intended to validate flight characteristics, key technologies and operational data. Heart described the demonstrator as fully battery-electric for the sortie and said it generated more than 1 megawatt of power during the flight.
The aircraft has a wingspan of 106 feet and is designed to provide flight-test data ahead of the ES-30’s planned entry into service. The first flight gives the Swedish start-up a visible step forward in a sector where developers are still working to prove that battery-electric propulsion can scale beyond small aircraft.