A $5 Electric Flight Just Worked. So Why Can't Airliners Go Fully Electric?
An airplane weighing more than 25,000 pounds just flew for 27 minutes using about $5 worth of electricity. That sounds like the beginning of the end for jet fuel. It isn't. On August 12, 2026, Heart Aerospace's X1 took off from Plattsburgh International Airport in New York. The aircraft climbed to 1,100 feet and flew for 27 minutes. Its electric propulsion system delivered more than one megawatt of power. And it did all of this using batteries. No jet fuel. Heart Aerospace says X1 is the largest battery-electric aircraft ever flown. But there is something strange about this story. The airplane Heart actually wants to sell to airlines is not fully electric. It is a hybrid . So if a large electric airplane can already fly for about $5 worth of electricity, why put a fuel-burning system back into the commercial version? The answer is surprisingly simple. The problem isn't the electric motor. It's the battery. First, What Exactly Flew? X1 is not a new ...