Last year, Rolls-Royce shared with us its plans to create the fastest electric plane in the world - and now the company announced that ACCEL (Accelerating the Electrification of Flight), because we are talking about it, has successfully completed all ground tests, so it's time to think about it
about taking to the air.
For people who have not yet heard about this one-man unit, the manufacturer aims at a drive based on three 750R engines, which will translate into 500 horsepower of power.
The battery pack consisting of 6,000 individual cells, which will provide a range of 320 kilometers on a single charge, will be responsible for supplying energy to work. However, the most important here is the maximum speed, which is to be 480 km / h!
Only this is in the future, because so far the technology is being tested on a full-size replica of the plane's shaft called ionBird.
The name is, of course, a tribute to the so-called
The Iron bird, a ground test device for prototyping and integrating aircraft systems during the development of new designs.
The aircraft systems are installed in the iron bird, making it possible to test them individually as well as in cooperation with other systems.
During the ground tests,
a propeller that has been accelerated to its maximum speed, i.e. 2400 rpm (revolutions per minute), optimizing the operation of the system and collecting data for future analysis.
Rolls-Royce announced that ACCEL should take off on its first flight this year, but will not attempt to break the speed record until next.
"Completing the ground tests by ACCEL is a tremendous achievement for the team and another important step towards the world record," said Rob Watson, director of Rolls-Royce Electrical.
The British Minister of Trade and Industry, Nadhim Zahawi, is also pleased: - From trains to airplanes, our transport of the future will be powered by clean, electric sources - all thanks to companies like Rolls-Royce that are developing technology to help us meet our zero emissions ambitions
The completion of the ground testing of the government-backed ACCEL project is not only a step towards an exciting world record trial, but also towards electric and hybrid aircraft that can one day carry large numbers of passengers around the world.