China's electric aircraft ready for takeoff
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File photo taken on Feb 6, 2015 shows the empennage of the two-seater electric aircraft RX1E in Shenyang, northeast China's Liaoning Province. [Photo/Xinhua] |
According to Gu Chao, one of the designers, the core problem is how to control the weight of the plane.
Finally, the R&D team found the way by using all-composite materials and improving the motor efficiency to 94 percent, which helped increase the operation rate of the lithium battery.
"I can't remember how many times we slept on the ground in the composing room, alongside the plane," Gu recalled.
However, their hard work paid off.
The aircraft received its airworthiness certificate from the Civil Aviation Administration of China early last year.
"RX1E is the only electric sports light plane in the world that has both a model design approval certificate and a production certificate," Zhao said.
But further progress is in the pipeline.
"This year, we will mainly work on increasing the flying time to 1.5 hours or even 2 hours. Also, we will improve the domestic production rate from 90 percent to 100 percent," Zhao added.
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