Electric Airplane VUT 051 RAY

Scientists from the Brno University of Technology have developed an airplane with electric engine VUT 051 RAY, which had its first take off in August 2014. During this first test the airplane stayed in the air for 27 minutes. Due to significantly higher energy storage (in comparison with other airplanes) it can stay more than one hour in the air, which is a big advantage.

The airplane was designed with respect to the more strict requirements of aviation regulations (those for higher category of airplanes) under the supervision of the Civil Aviation Authority. Developers have also applied many security technologies in order to increase the reliability of the propulsion system.

Experimental airplane was developed by Brno University of Technology and company JIHLAVAN airplanes, s.r.o. (producer of small sports planes) as a device for testing the possibilities of electric propulsion in aviation. Older plane VUT 001 Marabu was used as the basis for new model in order to save on development costs and time.