Heart X1 - first flight

TFL

TFL

Filing Flight Plan
Joined
May 19, 2026
Messages
9
Display Name
TFL
First flight of Heart Aerospace X1, largest all-electric aircraft ever flown: 30 seats, 75 ft long, 105 ft wingspan almost like a 737.

The energy costs for fuel would be eighty times as high.. that is impressive.

www.heartaerospace.com

X1 First Flight — Heart Aerospace

Heart Aerospace’s X1 demonstrator aircraft completed its first flight on August 12, 2026, advancing development of the company’s ES-30 hybrid-electric regional airliner.
www.heartaerospace.com www.heartaerospace.com
 
My son had sent me that. I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation on their cost claim and concluded that they were using an extraordinarily low price for electricity.
If I remember correctly, it was like 1.5 cents per kWh. I pay 16 cents.
I'd love to see the numbers they used. Neat accomplishment nevertheless.
 
737steve said:
My son had sent me that. I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation on their cost claim and concluded that they were using an extraordinarily low price for electricity.
If I remember correctly, it was like 1.5 cents per kWh. I pay 16 cents.
I'd love to see the numbers they used. Neat accomplishment nevertheless.
Click to expand...
Thanks for sharing.. why am I not surprised... ;)
 
When you are a large consumer, you can buy wholesale. And off peak wholesale depending on where you are in the country will range from 1.5cents to 4cents during the summer and lower in winter.

Tim
 
Doc Holliday said:
And at airports where these will be based and airports that will get their service, all they need to do is set up big diesel generators to recharge the plane between flights. o_O
Click to expand...
I actually saw something like that in action. Landed at Valparaiso on the way to Oshkosh, and this was sitting on the ramp being re charged by this large diesel generator truck. Which begs the question - how much diesel fuel does an electric plane use?

1788443383178.png
 
They claim to have used 3.7 kWh per mile in cruise. At $0.1/kWh, that is $0.37 per mile for 30 passengers.
 
Neat airplane. Range is a bit iffy in all-electric mode.

Wonder how fast the charging turnaround is? If they can get it to roughly equal the time spent offloading and onloading pax and bags, it won't be an operational constraint.

Once tech is mature, maintenance cost should be significantly lower than liquid fuel engines.
 
Put up a huge solar array, high enough to lease out shade parking for small planes.

Battery bank big enough for fast charging the plane itself

The energy supply might make money providing free KW,s to the plane.

Power company heavily discounted rates usually have a clause allowing the service to be cut off if a power shortage occurs, which would not be compatible with scheduled air routes. Such contracts, and unexpected shut downs are common in industrial areas.
 
Doc Holliday said:
And at airports where these will be based and airports that will get their service, all they need to do is set up big diesel generators to recharge the plane between flights. o_O
Click to expand...
Several years ago, the airport I worked from installed a charging station in the parking garage. Someone put a decal on it. Coal Powered.
At the time, pretty much true.
 
I know it’s part of the “test envelope” but a max altitude of 2,000ft AGL seems interesting. From a testing POV it seems like higher gives more options if there are issues.

If that’s a true constraint for the design that will stay, seems like there are lots of approaches that’ll be off limits. Plus it’ll be bumpy as heck down low. Combined with 140KIAS, this will be a short hop, good weather option if those don’t increase a lot.
 
Llewtrah381 said:
I know it’s part of the “test envelope” but a max altitude of 2,000ft AGL seems interesting. From a testing POV it seems like higher gives more options if there are issues.

If that’s a true constraint for the design that will stay, seems like there are lots of approaches that’ll be off limits. Plus it’ll be bumpy as heck down low. Combined with 140KIAS, this will be a short hop, good weather option if those don’t increase a lot.
Click to expand...
Plus it's range is only 125nm in all electric or 500nm in hybrid, I honestly don't see this being any better than just driving after you account for TSA and other airport delays
 
TFL said:
First flight of Heart Aerospace X1, largest all-electric aircraft ever flown
Click to expand...
Interesting thing with Heart Aerospace is while their X1 demonstrator is all electric, their clean-sheet design based off it (ES-30) uses two PT6s at the outboard locations and two electric motor at inbd location powered by turbo-generators.

737steve said:
Someone put a decal on it. Coal Powered.
Click to expand...
FYI: not all aircraft electric propulsion designs are climate or green related. However, the X1/ES-30 options seem stuck on that specific green path which tends not to end well.
 
geezer said:
Power company heavily discounted rates usually have a clause allowing the service to be cut off if a power shortage occurs, which would not be compatible with scheduled air routes. Such contracts, and unexpected shut downs are common in industrial areas.
Click to expand...
What you would do is buy off-peak power at $0.02-$0.03/KWH and store it in a battery farm. You'd buy at least enough battery capacity to peak-shave and avoid the high premiums during peak demand times. My employer is a large consumer of electricity. On our variable plan, we average <$0.07/kwh over the course of a year. That varies from $0.02/kwh off-peak and in shoulder season to $5/KWH in peak hours. We shut down our big energy users during the peak periods.
 
WDD said:
I actually saw something like that in action. Landed at Valparaiso on the way to Oshkosh, and this was sitting on the ramp being re charged by this large diesel generator truck. Which begs the question - how much diesel fuel does an electric plane use?
Click to expand...
Did you actually see the genset, or was it just a giant battery on a truck?

I ask because Tesla has mobile Supercharger stations that they can deploy to areas that are going to be unusually busy, and while they are on the back of a diesel truck, the chargers are not not diesel powered, they're battery powered.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Did you actually see the genset, or was it just a giant battery on a truck?

I ask because Tesla has mobile Supercharger stations that they can deploy to areas that are going to be unusually busy, and while they are on the back of a diesel truck, the chargers are not not diesel powered, they're battery powered.
Click to expand...
I saw what was in the picture I posted. As far as the charging, the truck was parked and making a lot of diesel noise and exhaust. Either a diesel generator or a really loud battery.
 
Last edited:
Ed Haywood said:
Neat airplane. Range is a bit iffy in all-electric mode.

Wonder how fast the charging turnaround is? If they can get it to roughly equal the time spent offloading and onloading pax and bags, it won't be an operational constraint.

Once tech is mature, maintenance cost should be significantly lower than liquid fuel engines.
Click to expand...
The operational constraint is the ridiculously large amount of energy production needed to do it in any scale. The battery pack for this one is 350kwH of peak storage. To charge that in 30 minutes with a ~10% loss for heat, you need 777 kW charging source. That's 1,000V and 777A power supply for it. That's 0.78MW per aircraft gate in use. If doing that with solar & battery, that's roughly $4M in recharging infrastructure micro-grid per operational gate with 8 ops a day to make it possible. That honestly isn't all that bad in the grand scheme, but scaling that up gets very expensive very quickly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top