Rolls-Royce's zippy electric airplane wants to break speed records—and power air taxis of the future

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The goal is to fly faster than 300 mph.

. “It used to have a really large internal combustion engine at the front, and then it had a huge fuel tank that sat right behind it,” Parr says. Of course, that stuff isn’t necessary in an electric aircraft, so the team removed it. “What we had left was this huge volume of space at the front of the aircraft,” he says. That space gave them room to install new components.Now the guts of the airplane include a three-battery system that’s made up of more than 6,000 cylindrical cells.

The three batteries, plus the three motors, represent three independent systems. Parr says two of those can fail and in an emergency, the airplane can stay in the air powered by just one.The Spirit of Innovation is based off a kit aircraft.of about 210 miles per hour. “We weren’t even trying that hard,” Parr laughs. “We almost got there straight away.”When they actually try to break the record, it will happen with an official course and careful measurements.

In other words, the Spirit of Innovation is already approaching the record, at least unofficially. Their goal is to fly at 300 mph. The goal with this specific aircraft, which will probably only fly about 20 times in total, is simple: “Go incredibly fast, and excite and inspire people,” Parr says. In that sense, it’s something of a stunt to call attention to what Rolls-Royce and its partners can do in terms of building electric propulsions systems that other companies may want to one day buy.

 

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Why not? If they can make a propeller that won’t disintegrate at the tips under supersonic conditions all aircraft can benefit. Electric Aircraft are forever a fad until a viable onboard non battery power generation source can be invented.

Just keep those Cobalt & Lithium mining slaves working.

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