Rolls-Royce has flown its all-electric Spirit of Innovation aircraft and says it will embark on an intense testing program to validate its engineering projections. The sleek prototype took off from the U.K. Ministry of Defense’s Boscombe Down test facility on Sept. 15. for a 15-minute hop. The flight was uneventful.
Hahahar! A raceplane as the basis for a military trainer? Tell ‘em they’re dreamin’!
There is precedent. After all, the Spitfire was a direct descendant of a race plane!
…and that paint job sure is reminiscent of the Supermarine S6 corrugated cooling tube fuselage…
…and the flared bulges over the cylinder banks…
…and the colours and the tail flash…
Cockpit placement…
…and date of first flight - Battle of Britain Day…
The spitfire was not a trainer aircraft.
Rolls Royce made an excellent choice to work with Jon Sharp of Nemesis Racing installing their electric motor/battery/ESC in an NXT. 300mph will be an easy goal to achieve with their current combo. Once reliability and cooling parameters are met, I would not be surprised to see this airplane at Reno. It could be contender within the sport class and the unlimited. I believe 400+ is well within striking distance for the Spirit of Innovation. This airplane is worth following.
That’s what we need - a military trainer with a 10-minute endurance. Brilliant!
So when is the historic flight across the English Channel scheduled? Do they now have to queue up for the record book flash?
I read on another site that RR is only using the batteries as a study platform for hydrogen fuel cells which makes more sense. Battery powered commercial air travel is not practical until the periodic table of the elements is expanded, and I believe God has finished Creation some time ago.
And negative 30 minute reserve!
Beautiful plane though. Looks like would be a good platform for a race prepped Mercedes Benz AMG twin turbo V-12. Now that would be exciting!
For some reason, several commentators seem to think an experimental NXT powered by a prototype RR electric motor with an equally prototype battery is going to be a military trainer. It’s clear the NXT design could be expanded into a military trainer using piston, turbine, or hybrid motivation. So why all the negativity about a pure racing plane being used as a motor proof of concept aircraft and a racing test bed with a potential for future development into a possible military trainer? The several NXT’s have been flown with various power plants. Why not electric or hybrid? RR nor any military customer is expecting an electric, hot rod, conventional gear trainer to suddenly appear. But there is plenty of room for future military development as technology matures. What’s wrong with that?
Race-focussed single-seater tail-draggers are about as far from a modern trainer as one can get?
It sounds as loud as a piston engined plane, what’s with that? Nobody remarked about that?
Most noise is from the prop regardless. In many cases, you would struggle to identify an electric from piston aircraft passing overhead by sound alone, at least until practiced.
Cameron,
The NXT is two place and purposefully designed to replicate the flight characteristics of a modern jet fighter or high performance military turbines many countries including the US that are used as primary and advance trainers. Adding a nose wheel, moving the cockpit, etc to meet military requirements is well within the overall design of the existing racing NXT. So, the NXT’s attributes are very close to the military’s design requirements in many ways.