What’s the range and charge time for max range? It’s good to see aviation getting nore electric but pointless (to ordinary consumers I know there are accessibility advantages) if you can’t go as far in a day as a comparable electric car.
The B23 has 60 minutes of endurance plus 10 minutes reserve. For each minute of flight it needs a minute to charge. Recommended flight time is about 40 minutes, which make sense to keep the battery at a healthy state of charge. However I’m confused by how they can market a 10 minute reserve time when the FAA requires 30 minutes reserve fuel for visual flight rules and 45 minutes reserve fuel for instrument conditions.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/91.151
It says cruise speed is 110 knots (120mph or 200km/h). Cruise is achieved at 80kW with 48kWh of energy available, so it can fly for 36 minutes total at “cruise” speed. If we subtract mandatory reserves, one could fly for 6 minutes.
For reference, most small airplanes have at least 4 hours of endurance. My airplane has 6 hours.
This “cross country” flight will take months as shown by their schedule. It’s neat, but it’s very much a prototype.
https://h55.ch/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Flyer_B23_Energic_EU.pdf
In Europe electric planes may fly with less reserve. I think this is to help kick start innovation. I suppose they get priority for landing if necessary. This makes at least one of these electric aircraft ok for training sessions so there is a practical use.
if you can’t go as far in a day as a comparable electric car.
It’s just for training pilots not a commercial jet
CS-23 Electric Trainer Aircraft
I’m all for cleaning up the air industry, but if be interested to know what kind of range is possible, what size both physical and in kwh the battery is.
I cannot see an electric passenger plane having suitable range or fast turnaround at the gate.
Imagine an airport with say 10 planes at the gate in a given moment. In intercontinental flight might need 10 MWh to complete. To charge one plane in an hour therefore needs a 10 MW power plant to charge it. 10 planes needs 100MW plant. That’s 10 offshore wind turbines or maybe 500 acres of solar.
Nowhere in this article: the plane’s autonomy. Its main catch, and the main unsolved problem to make electric flying a thing.
