Can E-Air Racing Finally Take Off?

After COVID grounded its ambitions, a new breed of piloted race series looks to climb out of stall mode.

- Jaclyn Trop

A CENTURY AGO, a group of publishing magnates sponsored the Pulitzer Trophy Race, a 51km closed-course competition designed to headline the National Air Races series and highlight the rapidly developing technology of flight (not to mention sell newspapers). Today, the National Aeronautic Association, the oldest non-profit aviation group in the US, plans to resurrect the contest as a four-day cross-country endurance race for a range of crewed electric-propulsion aircraft; at the same time, across the pond, a trio of air-racing organisations are aiming to get their own competitive e-circuits off the ground. The age of electric air racing, it seems, has finally arrived – well, almost.

Airborne electric-propulsion technologies have evolved swiftly in recent years, as evidenced by the emergence of several dozen electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft firms, a handful of which boast serious investors and working prototypes. But electrified air racing hasn’t taken off at the same rate, with founders struggling to secure R&D investment and grappling with the realities of funding, regulating and marketing a new racing series during an ongoing pandemic.