Rolls-Royce recently announced that its ‘Spirit of Innovation’ aircraft is officially world’s fastest all-electric aircraft, setting two world records which have been independently verified.
On November 16 2021, at 15:45 (GMT), the aircraft reached a top speed of 555.9 km/h (345.4 mph) over 3 kilometres, smashing the existing record by 213.04 km/h (132 mph). In further runs at the UK Ministry of Defence’s Boscombe Down experimental aircraft testing site, the aircraft achieved 532.1 km/h (330 mph) over 15 km – 292.8 km/h (182 mph) faster than the previous record – and broke the fastest climb to 3000 metres by 60 seconds with a time of 202 seconds. The data has been submitted to the Fédération Aéronautique International (FAI) – the World Air Sports Federation who control and certify world aeronautical and astronautical records.
Warren East, CEO of Rolls-Royce, stated, “Staking the claim for the all-electric world-speed record is a fantastic achievement for the ACCEL team and Rolls-Royce. I would like to thank our partners and especially Electroflight for their collaboration in achieving this pioneering breakthrough. The advanced battery and propulsion technology developed for this programme has exciting applications for the Advanced Air Mobility market. Following the world’s focus on the need for action at COP26, this is another milestone that will help make ‘jet zero’ a reality and supports our ambitions to deliver the technology breakthroughs society needs to decarbonise transport across air, land and sea.”
