Heart aerospace completes first flight of largest electric aircraft

> It uses electric motors for zero-emission short hops up to 124 miles and backup reserve generators for an extended hybrid range up to 300–500 miles. I was wondering how they're gonna deal with alternate airports and "fuel" reserves, but it seems they also have generators on board (supposedly used in case of emergency / unplanned detours).

27 mins endurance (?) for $5 of power. Not bad. I rent a 172 and have been paying a $5/h fuel surcharge for the past few months due war in Iran - but at UK avgas prices 27 mins in my plane would be $55ish. Haven’t looked into the details but kind of crazy impact on economics of aviation if this size plane (10x 172 MTOW) can actually do useful short haul

Lots of places have water or mountains preventing car or train travel or making it go the long way around. Ferries are slow. Those would be natural applications for this. Tallinn-Helsinki city pair for example. I wonder, if this can get approved or certified somehow now, if then modifications and improvements are relatively easy, as long as many aspects like the pilot interface stays the same. Battery technology improves constantly after all. As an example, going from the current 200 km range to 400 could make it very useful in numerous regions certainly.

Also a short video on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEudbAjschs

All FedEx express packages in my area come and go via a dedicated twin-prop plane that flies 35 miles to the hub. I'm sending a package today, and $14 of the 54$ total is a fuel surcharge. I wonder if I will be seeing electricity surcharges in the future.