12 December 2016
The world air sports federation, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), has confirmed that a time set by Walter Extra flying one of his own aircraft equipped with an electric motor is an official world record.
The time of 4 minutes 22 seconds to climb to 3,000 metres was set by Walter in an Extra 330LE over Dinslaken Schwarze Heide airfield in Germany, in November. That’s a climb rate of 11.5 metres per second, or 2,264 feet per minute.
Walter Extra is congratulated by Siemen’s Frank Anton after setting the new time to climb record. [Photos: Siemens]
The electric Extra is fitted with a power train developed by Siemens, weighing just 50kg and delivering an output of around 260 kilowatts, or five times as much as comparable drives.
“This is another milestone on the path to the electrification of air travel,” said Frank Anton, head of eAircraft in Siemens’ venturing unit next47.
“This amazing performance was possible only with digital technologies, which enabled us to optimise our drive train to its technical limit.”
The Extra 330LE, weighing around 1,000kg, is the trial unit for the new drive. “As an aerobatic plane it’s perfectly suited to taking the components to their limits, and testing and refining them,” said Anton.
Following an agreement in April 2016, Siemens and Airbus are cooperating to apply this technology to electric-powered flight. Electric drives are scalable, and Siemens and Airbus intend to develop hybrid electric regional aircraft based on the record-breaking motor.
“By 2030, we expect to see the first electric-powered planes carrying up to 100 passengers with a range of around 1,000 kilometres,” said Anton.
