TAKE-OFF AT LAST

AFTER A LONG WAIT, THE WORLD'S FIRST ZERO EMISSIONS AEROPLANES ARE FINALLY TAXIING TO REALITY. BUT ARE THEY THE SOLUTION WE NEED?

-  IAN TAYLOR

The future of human flight arrived quietly, at a time when no one was clocking up air miles. It was June 2020 and the skies were unusually empty as the world reeled at the speed of the COVID-19 outbreak. But down on the ground, something pretty huge was happening with a very small aircraft.

EASA, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, certified a two-seater plane made in Slovenia as safe to fly. Within a few years it was certified by equivalent bodies in the UK, the US and elsewhere. The Pipistrel Velis Electro became the first fully certified electric aircraft in the world. It's still the only one. "The achievement represents a growing interest and trust in the reliability of electric aircraft," says Dr Tine Tomažič, director of engineering and programmes at Pipistrel. "We recently completed production of our 100th Velis Electro, marking a significant milestone for Pipistrel and the industry."

The future is already here, says Tomažič, but to borrow a line from sci-fi author William Gibson, it's far from evenly distributed. Despite a growing number of cleaner aircraft in development, there remain big questions about the alternative fuels required to fly them, and more still about the political will to make it all happen. After several abandoned take-offs, is this the moment that air travel finally goes green? Or is zerocarbon flight still the stuff of blue-sky thinking?

CLIMATE IMPACT

"Right now, aviation isn't a major contributor to climate change," says Dr Guy Gratton, somewhat unexpectedly. Gratton is associate professor of aviation and the environment at Cranfield University in the UK. An aeronautical engineer by trade, he's also a test pilot who flies experimental electric aircraft - in other words, he knows what he's talking about.