Aviation History Made in Canada Today

[Doug Garson]

The first flight of an all electric commercial airplane took place on the Fraser River in Richmond BC. The plane owned by Vancouver based Harbour Air, the world's largest all floatplane airline, was a de Havilland Beaver 6 passenger float plane outfitted with an electric propulsion system designed and supplied by Redmond Washington based Magnix. The airline plans to convert their entire fleet of floatplanes to all electric propulsion systems and expects to have the first all electric flights carrying paid passengers by 2021. Interesting stuff.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90440998/this-all-electric-airplane-is-flying-the-first-commercial-flight-test-of-its-kind

[Aaron Rosenthal]

According to the discussion I heard, the range is about 100 mi. (160km) which is perfect for the short hops they do.

[Frederick Skelly]

I hadnt heard this. It's fascinating news.
Congratulations to our Canadian friends!
Fred

[Adam Herman]

neat. we have flown on float planes to go fishing out of nakina and hawks junction.

[Bob Grier]

Neat thing happened but sort of misleading.

https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/electric-beaver-flies/

Endurance 15 minutes.

Cargo and passenger area used for battery space.

What is the "useful load?" Depends on how many batteries. I don't know how many pounds of battery equals same amount of energy from a pound of gas. Would have to use efficiency ratios associated with a plane engine instead of road vehicle in order to find out.

[Doug Garson]

Just to push back on the article Bob linked, yes the plane is not yet certified for carrying passengers, Harbour Air fully expects that they can achieve that certification by 2021.The battery system in the plane is not state of the art, can't find the article but read an article that explained they used a battery system that has been in use by NASA for a while and current batteries have twice the capacity so for short haul flights 1/2 hour or less (which is the majority of their flights) the battery issue described already has a solution.

[Bill Dufour]

Better then the John Deere Tractor 400HP with the 1,000 foot extension cord. Maybe they will do like Deere and delete the pilot to save weight.
Bill D.

https://static.producer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/14143719/54-5-col-John-Deere-electric-tractor.jpg#_ga=2.6958257.260921538.1576386654-1753064966.1576386654