Hello
Gary here from ElectricAir. We own and operate the Pipistrel Alpha Electro in New Zealand. Thanks for the interest in this forum. I thought it might be helpful to give a little background.
We're passionate about electrification as a way to reduce local pollution, oil use, noise and greenhouse gas emissions. I've been driving EVs for years and think they are better than ICE vehicles in every way. So it's obvious that aircraft are going to go in the same direction.
Pipistrel is the only manufacturer in the world who serially produce an electric plane. So the choice at the moment is limited, albeit their are hundreds of manufacturers working on various prototypes.
We brought the plane to NZ just as lockdown began and it sat around for a while along in the hangar. However, we've been flying it for several months and it's a lovely aircraft to fly. Smooth, quiet, and powerful. And we never need to run down to the petrol station.
The Alpha is a training plane. It's designed to fly for the duration of a lesson. As you know, with a petrol plane, you generally have a 60 minute lesson. Which is to say 60 mins HOBS. So from the moment you turn the key to the moment you switch it off. In a petrol plane, you may be on the ground for 15 mins warming and checking the engine. One of the best parts with the electric is that you get in and go. Zero warmup. We've had several flights of a full hour with plenty of reserve left, but in reality with a petrol lesson, you're only in the air for an average 45 mins in a lesson. So we can easily match that and have plenty of spare juice.
Charge times with the three phase 20kW unit tends to be approx an hour, but is often less because you may well land with say 40% remaining.
The battery capacity is 21kWh (20kWh usable). That's split into dual redundant batteries.
If one battery fails for any reason, the plane can absolutely continue flying on the one up to 35kW of power (total we get is 68kW). And an interesting exercise we've tried a few times is taking off with only 35kW of power on a grass runway. It takes a little longer, but no probs.
The plane does regenerate on descent, so in theory if you took off from the top of Mt Cook you would land with more energy than when you departed. However I'm not aware of any charging infrastructure at the top of the mountain, so we won't be trying that just yet!
We're finding the plane has more power and more torque than the petrol equivalent.
The instrument panel is impressive, clear and well laid out.
We're operating from Rangiora and Christchurch.
Let me know if you have any further questions. We'll be opening up for trial flight booking soon.
Cheers. Gary
