All-electric aircraft to emulate Lindbergh's historic transatlantic flight

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Chip Yates of Flight of the Century has announced his intention to design, build and pilot an electric aircraft that will fly non-stop from New York to Paris along the exact same route taken by Charles Lindbergh 85 years ago

Work on the audacious project started in April with the purchase of a Burt Rutan designed Long-EZ Aircraft

Chip Yates is currently training to be a pilot and intends to be qualified in good time to fly all of the test flights, record attempts and eventually the transatlantic crossing flight

The custom prop hub being machined for the electric Long-ESA to fit the custom CATTO prop, designed for top speed

Preparations are underway to convert the Long-EZ to an all electric aircraft

The futuristic-looking Long-EZ purchased for electric conversion and then to act as a test bed for developing the battery pack parachute jettison, UAV battery pack jettison and UAV battery pack re-docking technologies

The renamed Long-ESA will also feature in forthcoming world record attempts for the fastest manned electric airplane and highest altitude for a manned electric airplane

Preparations are underway to convert the Long-EZ to an all electric aircraft

The current thinking is that five UAV pods will be launched during the flight, with all ejected units being recovered and recharged

This image shows a hard docked, winged UAV on top of the Lindbergh mothership but the team is planning to use a soft tethered approach

Although there are no current plans for eject and replace battery action over water at the moment, this is a possibility for future electric air travel

Chip Yates being interviewed for CBS recently

A fully operational Long-EZ, not unlike the one purchased by FOTC (apart from this one has a fuel engine)

Chip Yates gets in some air miles flying a Cessna Twin 340 to the the US Navy base at China Lake

Charles Lindbergh standing next to the Spirit of St Louis

Chip Yates after his first solo flight a few days ago

Article Summary

Eighty five years ago, Charles Lindbergh became the first pilot to successfully fly from New York to Paris non-stop, claiming a substantial cash prize and securing a place in history in the process. Now another world record holder, Chip Yates, has announced plans to take on the same aviation challenge ... but this time the aircraft making the 3,600 mile non-stop flight will be all-electric. The ambitious project is still in its early stages but the Flight of the Century team has already developed a patent-pending battery deployment solution to replenish depleted batteries while the aircraft is in flight.

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