Alice, the Eviation electric plane airborne this morning. Photo / Supplied
A battery-powered plane backed by New Zealand billionaire Richard Chandler has successfully flown in the United States in what's being hailed as trailblazing flight.
Chandler told the Herald the aircraft could revolutionise air travel, initially on regional routes, and could be ideal for linking New Zealand towns. The zero-emission flights would connect places difficult or expensive to get to by road or boat. The battery-powered planes could be run for half the cost of existing aircraft.
The Waikato-raised Chandler is estimated by Forbes to be worth US$2.6 billion ($4.57b) and lives in Singapore where his personal investment company, Clermont Group, is based and has now moved into sustainable aerospace besides its other ventures.
The test plane, named Alice, was developed by Eviation in which he took a controlling stake about three years ago. It is powered by unique electric engines his MagniX aviation firm has developed. The firm says they are the only flight-proven electric propulsion systems that can power planes at this scale.
Alice lifted off this morning from Grant County International Airport in Washington State, flying for eight minutes at an altitude of 1200m in what is a significant milestone in its journey to commercial production, as early as 2027.
US-based Cape Air and Global Crossing Airlines have placed orders for 75 and 50 Alice aircraft respectively. DHL Express is Eviation's first cargo customer, with an order of 12 Alice eCargo planes.
The Eviation planes have caught the eye of Air New Zealand which s investigating electric or hybrid electric aircraft for use on regional routes as early as 2030.
The airline's chief operational integrity and safety officer, David Morgan, said it was ''great to see organisations like Eviation accelerating the advancement of zero emissions aircraft technology. We know this technology is what will be required for us to reduce the emissions on our domestic network.''
The airline has a Product Requirements Document (PRD) in market outlining what is needed to introduce zero emissions aircraft.
''It's still our ambition to introduce an electric aircraft into the fleet within the next 5 years pending the technology development. We are currently working through the responses to our PRD that address this and will have more to share in the very near future," said Morgan.
While the electric plane space is becoming increasingly crowded, Eviation and MagniX with substantial financial backing and a long engineering pedigree in the area are seen as forerunners.
Chandler, whose interests range from healthcare in Vietnam to small business lending in India, says adding sustainable aviation development was the right thing to do for Clermont.
"Alice is really the future - we're excited and privileged to be in a position to lead the development of aviation."
Aviation's contribution to global emissions was forecast to treble from about 3 per cent over the next 30 years as the number of flights by fossil-fuel aircraft grew.
"So it's a significant source of pollution, obviously, as countries develop, and wealth grows, so aviation grows. It's quite a challenge for the planet in terms of dealing with climate change, and we need to be able to look at all areas from coal-fired power stations to propulsion on aircraft."
He said his firm had invested ''hundreds of millions'' of dollars in the airframe and engine companies.
"Developing new aircraft is a very expensive proposition."
Engines from MagniX in 2020 powered a Cessna Caravan for a 30-minute test flight but the preference was for a clean sheet design to shake up the industry where much of the technology has not changed much for decades.
"We're in the period now where we realise that carbon is not the way to go and yet the options for new technologies are not yet in production."
MagniX had the backing of US regulator the Federal Aviation Administration and was "years" ahead of the big engine makers.
The all-electric Alice aircraft features:
• Maximum operating speed: 260 knots
• Maximum load: 1133kg for the passenger version and 1179kg for the eCargo version
• A range of 241km to 400km
Alice is available in three variants including a nine-passenger commuter, an elegant and sophisticated six-passenger executive cabin, and an eCargo version. All configurations support two crew members. The executive cabin and eCargo variations are identical to the commuter configuration, except for the interior.
Alice is powered by two Magni650 electric propulsion units. Other key suppliers include AVL (battery support), GKN (wings), Honeywell (advanced fly-by-wire system, flight controls and avionics), Multiplast (fuselage), Parker Aerospace (six technology systems), and Potez (doors).
Chandler said the pace of battery development was picking up again and this would allow improved performance for the plane.
Eviation president and chief executive Gregory Davis said the company was embarking on the next era of aviation.
"People now know what affordable, clean and sustainable aviation looks and sounds like for the first time in a fixed-wing, all-electric aircraft.''
Chandler – who got a private pilot's licence in his 20's - said there was only a test pilot aboard this morning's flight.
Besides being technologically advanced, Alice was a good looking aircraft.
"Beauty sells. People aren't going to fly ugly planes even if they're carbon-free."
Chandler and his brother Christopher grew wealthy from global investment operations after expanding the family business Chandler House department stores in the early 1980s.
The late Brian Gaynor wrote that they convinced their parents to sell the department stores on a one-by-one basis. In 1986, the two young men and their parents moved to Monaco where Richard and Christopher established Sovereign Global Investment.
The new company had start-up capital of $10 million from the sale of the Chandler House stores. Sovereign Global, which was based in Monaco, started with a highly-leveraged purchase of four office buildings in Hong Kong. This investment was a huge success and when the Chandlers sold out in 1991 they had turned their original $10m into $40m.
Its successful investments included: A 1.5 per cent stake in Brazilian telco Telebras, which boosted Sovereign's net wealth from $40m to around $150m. In the mid-1990s, the Chandlers became one of the first foreign investors in the Russian sharemarket when they invested in electricity utilities, a steel company and Gazprom, the state-controlled oil and gas producer. The brothers' two-year campaign to remove the CEO of South Korean refiner SK Corp was unsuccessful but they walked away with a profit of more than US$700m from this investment.
Gaynor, in 2021 wrote for BusinessDesk, that Sovereign Global moved from Monaco to Dubai in 2004 but the brothers split the company on a 50/50 basis at the end of 2006 and went their own ways. Richard established Clermont Group in Singapore while Christopher formed Legatum Capital in Dubai, which now has an interest in a British media company, GB News.
Richard Chandler, who is in his early 60s, told the Herald he got back to New Zealand occasionally and would like to see more of the country in the future.
Clermont has stakes in SBFC, an Indian provider of small business loans, and Hoan My, a private healthcare group in Vietnam which employs 5000 doctors and nurses and treats four million patients a year.
The airline sold its last slots at Heathrow in 2020.