Electra's aircraft looks conventional enough, but it generates ludicrous amounts of lift, to take off and land at incredibly slow speeds, using almost no runway. With US$9 billion in pre-orders, it's outselling anything from the eVTOL world.
Editor's note: Readers often ask us for follow-ups on memorable stories. A version of this article was originally published in January 2024, but has now been re-edited and updated with new information current as of March 21, 2025. Enjoy!
Electra's hybrid-electric STOL (short takeoff and landing) aircraft has been a surprise sales breakthrough. When it hits the market, it'll carry a pilot and 3,000 lb (1,361 kg) of cargo, or nine passengers with luggage, distances up to 1,100 nautical miles (1,265 miles, 2,037 km) at a cruise speed around 200 mph (322 km/h).
It'll run eight electric props along the leading edge of the wings, as well as large flaps hanging from the trailing edges. This allows a "blown lift" aerodynamic effect powerful enough that it'll lift off at a speed of just 35 mph (56 km/h).
And it'll accelerate to that speed quickly – meaning that you can use a runway smaller than a soccer pitch. Electra says it'll operate from airfields as small as 300 x 100 ft (92 x 31 m). That's one-tenth the size of a standard runway, so even if these things won't open up as many spaces as eVTOLs, they'll still be extremely flexible.
Plus, as investors are no doubt pleased to note, it functions more or less as a regular plane, so the path to certification and commercial deployment should be much smoother and easier to navigate, with plenty of precedents and fewer unknowns than the eVTOL teams face.
Electra has been flying its two-seat EL2 prototype equipped with the hybrid blown-wing powertrain since May 2024. As of October, its shortest takeoff was around 150 ft (46 m), and shortest landing was a remarkable 114 ft (34.7 m). Electra VP and GM J.P. Stewart told Aviation Week that the EL2 generates so much lift that they've had it flying at airspeeds as low as 22 knots (25.3 mph, 40.7 km/h). "We still haven't found the stall speed yet," he said at the time.
And crucially, it's also quiet. The EL2, flying 500 ft (152 m) overhead, has now been acoustically validated at just 55 dB, or the equivalent of a normal indoor conversation level, as compared to a conventional turbine aircraft at 75 dB, or roughly as noisy as a vacuum cleaner. These things will be much less sonically disruptive over urban areas.
As it continues test flights, the company is working toward a full-scale nine-seat technology demonstrator that's scheduled to fly in 2026. This won't be the plane Electra takes through FAA certification, but it'll be extremely close to the final design, which will follow shortly afterward. The target date for certification and entry into service is sometime in 2028.
The market is certainly listening. Electra says it's now taken pre-orders for more than 2,200 aircraft, for a total approaching $9 billion. That's considerably higher than the biggest pre-seller in the eVTOL field – Archer Aviation, which now boasts more than $6 billion in provisional orders.
That's pretty fascinating – eSTOL represents a much more conventional approach with far less disruptive, world-changing potential than eVTOL, which allow rooftop-to-rooftop urban hops, and which are already flying commercially in China. The first American eVTOLs will hopefully be certified and into service later in 2025.
"We’ve created a fixed-wing airplane that delivers the access of a helicopter with 100 times less noise, 70% lower cost, improved safety, and dramatically reduced emissions," says Electra CEO Marc Allen in a recent press release. "The response from the global aviation industry has been tremendous. Our customers see the EL9 aircraft as a true game-changer, and they’re using its ultra-short takeoff capabilities to open the door to new routes in areas with space and noise constraints."
Source: Electra
Note: range has been added - thanks to commenters below for pointing out this oversight!
A version of this article was originally published in January 2024.