Electric Planes, Once a Fantasy, Start to Take to the Skies

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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/business/electric-planes-beta-technologies.html

By Niraj Chokshi, The New York Times. 

Excerpt: ...Over ...16 days, [Chris Caputo] and his colleagues flew the plane, a CX300 built by their employer, Beta Technologies, down the East Coast. They would make nearly two dozen stops to rest and recharge, flying through congested airspace in Boston, New York, Washington and other cities. When the journey came to an end in Florida, Beta handed the plane over to the Air Force, which will experiment with it over the next few months. The trip offered a vision of what aviation could look like years from now — one in which the skies are filled with aircraft that do not emit the greenhouse gases that are dangerously warming up the Earth. ...the CX300, a sleek, futuristic plane with a 50-foot wingspan, large curved windows and a rear propeller ...is designed to carry about 1,250 pounds of cargo and will be followed soon after by the A250, which shares about 80 percent of the CX300’s design and is outfitted with lift rotors to take off and land like a helicopter. Both aircraft, which Beta markets as the Alia, will eventually carry passengers, the company says. ...Beta is one of many companies working on electric aviation. ...Early on, electric aircraft are expected to compete mainly with helicopters and cars and trucks.... 

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