Electravia Makes a Good Showing at Aero Expo

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Anne Lavrand, founder and President of Electravia, continues to find ways to expand her company’s product offerings while offering well-integrated packages of reasonably-priced electric aircraft and components. At this year’s Aero Expo in Friedrichshafen, Germany, her firm displayed the fuselage of the Electrolight 2, a modified Fauconnet sailplane, fitted with a 30-hp Lynch-type motor, controller, and batteries.  It is the least expensive electric motorglider on the market at only 30,000 Euros ($39,600), and allows powered flight for recharging costs of about 0.65 Euros per hour (86 cents).  The motor, normally graced by one of Anne’s wooden e-Props, had a forward-folding “clap propeller” or “bec de canard” (literally, the beak of the duck), a variant on the light carbon fiber propellers that e-Props also produces.  This should reduce drag and help improve the performance of the Fauconnet, a French version of the popular Scheibe L-Spatz, which Anne notes was flown by every young German learning to fly sailplanes a few years …