CURRENT AFFAIRS

Detailed explanation-1: -If you haven’t already heard the good news, welcome. The first all-electric passenger airplane, charmingly named Alice, took its maiden voyage. For the test flight, the airplane took off from an airport in central Washington, ascended to 3,500 feet and landed again, for a total flight time of eight minutes.

Detailed explanation-2: -The current renaissance began with Robert Boucher, who pioneered the use of electric motors for model airplanes and in the early 1970s built a couple of pilotless solar-powered aircraft under contracts with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Detailed explanation-3: -Those battery-powered aircraft are being developed by Swedish start-up Heart Aerospace, from which United placed an order for 100 planes in July 2021.

Detailed explanation-4: -Electrically powered model aircraft have been flown at least since the 1970s, preceding the small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or drones used today. Small UAS could be used for parcel deliveries, and larger ones for long-endurance applications: aerial imagery, surveillance, telecommunications.