If the packs can be charged via on-site renewable sources like wind or solar, it would even be possible to perform these flights with zero emissions.
Short flights with rapid turnaround times would be ideal for an electrically driven plane, especially if battery packs could be quickly swapped out upon landing. NASA’s cost comparison for electric aircraftīut that doesn’t mean there aren’t niches that electric aircraft could fill. It will be exceedingly difficult for electric motors to compete against modern turbofan engines, which have themselves seen a number of improvements over the decades to maximize power and fuel efficiency. It would take a considerable breakthrough in energy storage, perhaps based on a whole new battery chemistry, to make such a plane viable even for domestic flights. To be clear, the commercial jetliner is in no danger of being replaced by an all-electric aircraft anytime soon. The experiments performed with the X-57 will help guide certification programs and government rule making that needs to be in place before such aircraft can operate on a large scale. Before they can operate in the public airspace, the performance characteristics and limitations of electric planes must be explored in real-world scenarios. Just as the X-1 helped usher in the era of supersonic flight, the X-57 has been developed so engineers can better understand the unique challenges of piloted electric aircraft. As far as cutting-edge experimental aircraft go, the X-57 is about as laid back as it gets.īut like previous X-planes, the Maxwell will one day be looked back on as a technological milestone of its own. The crew’s flight gear won’t even be anything more exotic than a polo and a pair of shorts. It’s not going to fly very fast, it won’t be making any high-G turns, and it certainly won’t be clawing its way through the upper atmosphere. So the X-57 Maxwell, NASA’s first piloted X-plane in two decades, might seem like something of a departure from the blistering performance of its predecessors. As such, the X-planes are often thought of as the epitome of speed and maneuverability. Several fighter jets got their start as X-planes over the decades, and a number of hypersonic scramjet vehicles have flown under the banner. The best known of these vehicles, such as the X-1 and X-15, were used to study flight at extreme altitude and speed. Since 1951, NASA (known in those pre-space days as NACA) and the United States Air Force have used the “ X” designation for experimental aircraft that push technological boundaries.
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