An Electric Helicopter Lifts Off – Briefly

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 4 Comments

Gizmag apparently beat everybody to this story, with even Popular Science quoting from the online gadget hunter’s web site. They report that in mid-August 2011, Pascal Chretien piloted his creation, a coaxial rotor, twin Lynch-motored helicopter that he built for Solution F, a Swiss racing engine development firm.  He performed the flight “in the presence of a court appointed witness,” according to a press release from Lithium Balance, the firm that supplied the battery management system (BMS) for and acted as consultants to the project.  The “first” Chretien claims is a carefully parsed one, an “untethered, fully electric manned helicopter flight in a prototype machine.”  The fact that he designed and built a unique machine and flew it in a 12 month span makes the two minute, 10 second flight all the more remarkable.  Solution F asked for a 10 to 12 minute flight, so more news will be coming, undoubtedly. As Lithium Balance notes, “With degrees in Electronics and …