Environmentalist blog Treehugger reports on the maiden flight of the “Electra,” a plane powered by a 25 horsepower electric engine powered by lithium-polymer batteries, two days before Christmas in France.
The wood-and-canvas framed monoplane flies with a cruising speed of 90 kilometers per hour (about 55 miles an hour) and flew for 48 minutes. However, this is not the first conventional electric plane; in July, 2006, Treehugger reported on a Japanese plane that was powered by AA batteries — 160 of them. That plane flew 400 meters, less than a minute.
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