Heart Aerospace’s X1 demonstrator completed its first flight Wednesday at Plattsburgh International Airport in New York. The company says the full-scale Heart X1 aircraft is the largest battery-electric airplane flown to date.
27-Minute Flight
The piloted flight lasted 27 minutes and reached 1,100 feet AGL. Heart said the X1’s battery-electric propulsion system produced more than 1 megawatt of power during the flight. The test profile included taxi, takeoff, climb, maneuvering and landing under an FAA experimental special airworthiness certificate.
“With the first flight of X1, Heart Aerospace has demonstrated electric flight at the scale of a commercial airliner,” Heart Aerospace founder and CEO Anders Forslund said in the company announcement.
Supporting The ES-30
The X1 has a 106-foot wingspan, measures 76 feet long and weighed more than 25,000 pounds at takeoff. The FAA issued the aircraft its special airworthiness certificate in July following ground testing that included structural, propulsion, systems and taxi tests. Heart said at the time that it planned to use the demonstrator to collect flight-characteristics and electric-propulsion data.
Heart is using the X1 program to support development of its ES-30, a planned 30-seat hybrid-electric regional aircraft. The company says it is building its first preproduction ES-30 at its Los Angeles pilot manufacturing facility and plans to begin flight testing that aircraft in 2028. Heart is targeting entry into service for the ES-30 in 2031.
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