Three pioneering planes fly for the future
It’s been an interesting week for aviation and for the potential future shape of commercial air transport. Two tiny planes crossed that sliver of water known as the English Channel and which separates England from continental Europe.
Test pilot Didier Esteyne flew an Airbus E-Fan technology demonstrator across the Channel on Friday, July 10. According to the Airbus press release, “the flight marked the world’s first all-electric two engine aircraft taking off by its own power to cross the Channel. The E-Fan’s flight of 74 kilometers [46 miles] between Lydd, England, and Calais in France was completed in 36 minutes”.
The release is carefully worded for a reason. Just the day before, on July 9, another pilot, Hugues Duwal, flew another small, electric-powered aircraft over the Channel. The Alpha Electro aircraft, developed and built by Slovenian company Pipistrel, therefore became the first electric-powered aircraft to cross the Channel, stealing that title from Airbus. But the Alpha was launched using a conventionally-powered aircraft – hence the Airbus sentence that the E-Fan was “the world’s first all-electric two engine aircraft taking off by its own power”.
According to several reports this week, Duwal only was able to make his pioneering flight after keeping details of his flight plan secret to the last minute (he had a permanent permit to fly his aircraft over the English Channel) because his Airbus rivals had hoped to be first.
If true, it only adds to an already long and colorful history of Channel crossings. Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries flew from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in a gas balloon 230 years ago in 1785, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air. Legend has it that the balloonists almost didn’t make it and had to throw almost everything – even Blanchard’s trousers -- overboard to lighten the balloon so it would it to the French coast.
On July 25 1909, there was another historic Channel crossing when Louis Blériot flew his Blériot XI, the first aircraft to be put into mass production and launch France’s aviation industry. Bleriot’s company was based in Suresnes, near Paris, at the same site where part of the E-Fan team is now located.
Meanwhile, far away in Hawaii, another aircraft is being repaired for the next stage of its epic round-the-world, solar-powered flight. Following its record breaking oceanic flight of five days and five nights, Solar Impulse is undergoing repairs on its batteries before resuming its mission, tentatively scheduled for August.
The designers, engineers and pilots of all these aircraft share some of the spirit of the aviation pioneers throughout history who helped bring us from the Wright Flyer to the Boeing 777 in less than 100 years.
I don’t know whether solar- or electric-powered aircraft will one day become standard airliners (or whether they future airliners will depend on other, entirely different technologies). But what will always be needed in this industry is competitiveness, a willingness to take risks and a pioneering spirit. Good luck and safe flying to the Alpha Electro, E-Fan and Solar Impulse!