So I read a news article about this electric aerospace startup in my hometown called Heart Aerospace. On their
website they outline their plan, which is to bring a
"200km range all-electric 30-passenger aircraft" into service by 2028. This sounded a bit strange to me as I thought electric flight currently was in a very early and experimental stage; a quick googling seems to confirm that the only fully electric aircraft in service today (apart from experimental prototypes) are UAVs and light 1-2 seater trainer planes. Manufacturing large aircraft like these is, from what I can gather, a very big undertaking and not something that a few years old unknown startup could realistically get into - even if we were talking about "simply" building traditional fuel aircraft with pre-made engines. I was unable to find anything of value online about the company, search engines yield only news articles, press releases, and job listings from the company.
One article of interest mention an earlier delivery date of "2026" for a different model of aircraft with a smaller capacity - one that has now
been replaced by the current model. This seems to clash a bit with their statements in the TC article:
"the 2026 launch date is “not just something that we have as a lofty goal that we’d like to parade around on the internet, but it’s what our suppliers are working toward, what our certifying authorities are working toward as well.”"Oh, and the
news article was about their plans for an aircraft factory at a location were getting scrapped. Apparently the market situation means they can't afford to refurbish the landing strip. They claim to have other options, and that they will build their factory elsewhere.
Is it just me being pessimistic or does this smell a bit?