The Pipistrel Velis Electro is a

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

light aircraft A light aircraft is an aircraft that has a maximum gross takeoff weight of or less.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 308. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. Light aircraft are used as utility aircraft co ...

, designed and produced by

Pipistrel Pipistrel d.o.o Ajdovščina is a Slovenian light aircraft manufacturer established in 1989Or 1989... --> by Ivo Boscarol and based in Ajdovščina. Its facilities are located in Ajdovščina, Slovenia, and near the town of Gorizia, Italy. By ...

Ajdovščina Ajdovščina (; it, Aidussina,trilingual name "Haidenschaft, Aidussina, Ajdovščina" inGemeindelexikon, der im Reichsrate Vertretenen Königreiche und Länder. Bearbeit auf Grund der Ergebnisse der Volkszählung vom 31. Dezember 1900. Herausgege ...

. The aircraft was

EASA The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is an agency of the European Union (EU) with responsibility for civil aviation safety. It carries out certification, regulation and standardisation and also performs investigation and monitori ...

CS-LSA fully electric

type certified A type certificate signifies the airworthiness of a particular category of aircraft, according to its manufacturing design (''type design''). It confirms that the aircraft of a new type intended for serial production, is in compliance with applica ...

in June 2020 and it is intended primarily for the

training aircraft A trainer is a class of aircraft designed specifically to facilitate flight training of pilots and aircrews. The use of a dedicated trainer aircraft with additional safety features—such as tandem flight controls, forgiving flight characteristi ...

role, particularly multiple successive take-off and landings at the airfield. The design is the first type certified electric aircraft and is supplied complete and ready-to-fly.

Design

The aircraft is based on the

Pipistrel Virus The Pipistrel Virus is a two-seat, single engine light aircraft, manufactured by Pipistrel in Slovenia and Italy, and sold as an ultralight, homebuilt kit, or light-sport aircraft.Vandermeullen, Richard: ''2012 Kit Aircraft Buyer's Guide'', Kitpl ...

airframe and features a cantilever

high-wing A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing co ...

, a two-seats-in-

side-by-side configuration Tandem, or in tandem, is an arrangement in which a team of machines, animals or people are lined up one behind another, all facing in the same direction. The original use of the term in English was in ''tandem harness'', which is used for two ...

in an enclosed cabin accessed via doors. It has a

stick shaker A stick shaker is a mechanical device designed to rapidly and noisily vibrate the control yoke (the "stick") of an aircraft, warning the flight crew that an imminent aerodynamic stall has been detected. It is typically present on the majority of ...

and fixed

tricycle landing gear Tricycle gear is a type of aircraft undercarriage, or ''landing gear'', arranged in a tricycle fashion. The tricycle arrangement has a single nose wheel in the front, and two or more main wheels slightly aft of the center of gravity. Tricycle g ...

and a single

electric motor An electric motor is an electrical machine that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. Most electric motors operate through the interaction between the motor's magnetic field and electric current in a wire winding to generate for ...

tractor configuration In aviation, the term tractor configuration refers to an aircraft constructed in the standard configuration with its engine mounted with the propeller in front of it so that the aircraft is "pulled" through the air. Oppositely, the pusher co ...

. The airframe is predominantly made from

composite material A composite material (also called a composition material or shortened to composite, which is the common name) is a material which is produced from two or more constituent materials. These constituent materials have notably dissimilar chemical or ...

s. Its span wing, has an area of , an aspect ratio of 12.03:1, an IMD 029-b airfoil and mounts three-position flaps, with settings of 0°, 8° and 19°. Pipistrel Velis Electro sn003 LJAJ left

The sole approved powerplant is the liquid-cooled Pipistrel E-811

, rated at at 2500 rpm for 90 seconds for take-off and at 2350 rpm for continuous operation. The motor was developed in conjunction with the Slovenian engineering companies

Emrax Emrax d.o.o is a Slovenian electric aircraft engine manufacturer founded by Roman Sušnik and based in Kamnik. The company specializes in the design and manufacture of electric motors for light aircraft.Bayerl, Robby; Martin Berkemeier; et al: '' ...

and Emsiso. It is powered by a 345 VDC, 24.8 kWh battery pack, in two each, liquid-cooled

lithium batteries Lithium battery may refer to: * Lithium metal battery, a non-rechargeable battery with lithium as an anode ** Rechargeable lithium metal battery, a rechargeable counterpart to the lithium metal battery * Lithium-ion battery, a rechargeable batte ...

by Pipistrel, connected in parallel for

fault tolerance Fault tolerance is the property that enables a system to continue operating properly in the event of the failure of one or more faults within some of its components. If its operating quality decreases at all, the decrease is proportional to the ...

. One battery is mounted in the nose and one behind the cabin for balance. They take 2 hours to recharge from 30% to 100% capacity, and allow an endurance of up to 50 minutes plus 10 minutes of VFR reserves when flying in proximity of the aerodrome. The motor radiator is mounted in the nose, which necessitates a different

engine cowling A cowling is the removable covering of a vehicle's engine, most often found on automobiles, motorcycles, airplanes, and on outboard boat motors. On airplanes, cowlings are used to reduce drag and to cool the engine. On boats, cowlings are a cove ...

from the Virus design. The battery radiator is mounted in the rear. Due to the liquid cooling and the weight of the battery unit, the batteries are not swappable, unlike the battery replacement system in the Alpha Electro. Take-off is not allowed when battery

state of charge State of charge (SoC) is the level of charge of an electric battery relative to its capacity. The units of SoC are percentage points (0% = empty; 100% = full). An alternative form of the same measure is the depth of discharge (DoD), the inverse ...

(SoC) is below 50%. The aircraft has a built-in continuous health-monitoring system displaying the estimated 'age' of the battery, and the battery must be charged using

proprietary {{Short pages monitor

Specifications

References

External links

*
Official video
{{Pipistrel aircraft Electric aircraft 2010s Slovenian civil utility aircraft Pipistrel aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft High-wing aircraft

Design

Specifications

See also

References

External links