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 …

Going Vintage Electrically

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 5 Comments

On December 21, 2011, Samy Dupland test flew Electravia’s latest adaptation of its electric power systems.  The Electrolight 2, a Fauconnet A60 on which Electravia head Anne Lavrand and Dupland mounted their 26 hp motor and power pack, is a French version of the Scheibe L-Spatz (Sparrow) standard class sailplane. With a 5.55 kilowatt hour lithium polymer battery pack, the electric microlight glider can stay up for one hour, 45 minutes or gain up to 3,000 meters (9,842 feet).  Its cruising speed is between 100 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour) and 150 km/h (93 mph), with its range doubtless dropping at higher speeds.  Its maximum weight is 315 kilograms (693 pounds) with a recovery parachute, right at the limit for French ultralight rules.  Electravia sells the complete system of electric propulsion (motors, controller, batteries, instruments, propeller), and provides integration of the system into light sailplanes like the Fauconnet. Several vintage sailplanes could be easily adapted to such a system. …