I recently had the chance to speak with one of the participants in the record-breaking electric flight between Switzerland and Germany’s North Sea coast on a Pipistrel electric light aircraft.

This all-electric expedition aimed to break 7 different records for an electric aircraft, and it eventually succeed in achieving 5 of them (the other two were not possible due to the prevailing weather conditions)

These are the 7 records that the flight aimed to break

Lowest energy consumption (kWh/100 km) over 700km
Highest average speed over 700 km (km/h)
Highest flight altitude ever reached with an electric aircraft (meters above sea level)
Fastest climbing performance from 0-1000m / 1000-2000m / 2000-3000m (m/s)
Fastest average speed over 100km (km/h)
Smallest number of intermediate stops over a distance of 700 km (number of stops)
Longest electrically flown route in 24/48/56 hours (km)

Did they achieve them?

Keep reading…)

This was an initiative that was concocted by a group of 5 people that share a passion for electrical mobility, and although some of them were connected to aviation, they all came from different backgrounds. For example, one of the proponents of this project, for example, runs the largest podcast about electric mobility in German language, while another one owns an environmentally-friendly micro-brewery on the island of Norderney, the end point of this record-breaking electric flight.

The pilot of the aircraft was Marco Buholzer, from Switzerland, a pilot and entrepreneur that is involved in several projects related to the decarbonization of aviation.

The flight, whose start was delayed by intense rain at Schänis, Switzerland, the airfield near Zürich it took off from, took the Pipistrel aircraft over 838 km in two and a half days (from Monday morning until the early afternoon of Wednesday).

No electric aircraft has, at the moment, the range to cover the 700km that separate Schänis from Norderney, so the flight counted up to 11 intermediate stops, with two overnights.

In the video below, you can see the route they followed plotted on a map:

The whole project was planned over a relatively short period of time, after the participants got together, mainly over the internet, since they are based at different locations in Germany and Switzerland. The window of opportunity to do it this year was relatively short. With daylight hours shortening, the flight had to take place no later than September.

The main issue here was to find out the right infrastructure to recharge the aircraft along the way. Since electric planes are still a sort of very niche, experimental segment of the industry, no charging stations were available. The solution was to find a mobile charger and put it in a car.

Such mobile chargers, which are like a giga-sized version of the ones people carry with them to recharge their phones while on the go, are no small matter: the one they used to charge the Pipistrel along the way weights no less than 75kg!

The expedition needed, thus, a land component. Two support cars drove along the same route to provide ground support at the multiple waypoints. One of the cars driving always ahead in order to get everything ready for the Pipistrel’s stopover.

An interesting fact here, when they launched an appeal for support through their podcast, they got enthusiastic replies from all over Germany and it was on the basis of this feedback that they were able to define the itinerary. Moreover, many people volunteered to support on the ground and several airfields refused to charge landing fees, electricity or service charges.

Let’s see how the flight did when it comes to the record-setting

Lowest energy consumption (kWh/100 km) over 700km - ACHIEVED
190,951 kWh of electrical energy over the entire route. (including losses of approx. 15% caused by the charger)
Total flown distance 453 nm / 838.964 km average consumption 22.76 kWh/100km, which corresponds to 2.33l diesel (energy equivalent diesel: 9.75 kWh/l)
Highest average speed over 700 km (km/h) - ACHIEVED
Average speed over 838.956 km: 125.217km/h (linear distance Schänis-Norderney: 738.37km)
Highest flight altitude ever reached with an electric aircraft - NOT ACHIEVED
Fastest climbing performance 0-1000m/1000-2000m/2000-3000m (m/s) - NOT ACHIEVED
The two planned altitude records (reached flight altitude and fastest climb rate) were planned for Norderney, but could not be flown due to the weather on 3rd Sept. The benchmark from the specification remains (12,000 ft altitude)
Fastest average speed over 100km (km/h) - ACHIEVED
136km/h on the route from Lahr Airport to Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden Airport
Smallest number of intermediate stops over a distance of 700 km (number of stops) - ACHIEVED (11 STOPS + START & FINISH)
Longest electrically flown route in 24/48/56 hours (km) - ACHIEVED
24h: 326.878km on the first day (Takeoff from Schänis Airfield on August 31, 2020 at 8am., landing Bad Dürkheim August 31, 2020 at 6pm) The absolutely longest distance in 12h was flown on the way back from Mainz-Finthen airport to Schänis airport, a total of 382.44 km (Take-off from Mainz-Finthen airfield on September 6th, 2020 at 8:19 am, landing at Schänis airfield at 7:23 pm)
48h: 608.382km on the first and second day (Take off from Schänis airfield on August 31, 2020 at 8am, landing at Münster-Telgte airfield on September 1, 2020 at 4.36pm)
56h: 838.956km (Takeoff from Schänis Airfield on August 31, 2020 at 8:00 a.m., landing at Norderney Airfield on September 2, 2020 at 3.24pm)

But, besides the publicity component that the “record-breaking” angle brings, the main take-aways of this flight, and the one its participants attribute more importance to, is the confirmation of how extremely efficient, energy.wise, electric flight can be

In Marco Buholzer’s own words: “Our most important record is the energy consumption for the trip. We used 190.951KWh's of electricity for the trip. This is including the losses in the charger. This is a diesel equivalent of about 19 litres for the 838Km! This puts us in the range of a Tesla Model S or X and, without exaggeration, this is a new benchmark in aviation. Comparable aircraft with internal combustion engines would consume about 4x to 5x more energy.”

To learn more about this fascinating electric flight project, check out their website (mostly in German - been told some additional info will be available in English soon - but, in any case, plenty of cool pics and videos there!)

From the Alps to the North Sea: account of a record-breaking electric flight