Heart Aerospace flew its X1 demonstrator for 27 minutes on August 12, 2026, making the 25,000-pound aircraft the heaviest battery-electric aeroplane ever flown. It drew more than one megawatt from its batteries and burned about $5 of electricity doing it.
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Transcript
Heart Aerospace just flew the heaviest battery electric aircraft in history. Twenty five thousand pounds, a hundred and six foot wingspan, twenty seven minutes in the air over upstate New York. It pulled more than a megawatt from its batteries. The electricity cost about five dollars. That's the whole pitch right there. But here's the part nobody's saying out loud. This thing is battery only, and the plane Heart actually wants to sell you isn't. The ES thirty has two jet fuel turboprops bolted to the wing. Batteries get you two hundred kilometres. The turbines get you the other six hundred. So the company that just set the world record for electric flight still doesn't think batteries can carry paying passengers anywhere useful by twenty thirty one. Record set. Physics unmoved.