Tomorrow an electric plane will fly the English Channel for the first time

Updated @ 05:23 EDT: The e-Fan's flight across the English Channel was successful! Intriguingly, it appears that Hugues Duwal may have flown his tiny electric Cri Cri plane across the Channel last night, under the cover of darkness, beating Airbus to the title of "first battery powered crossing of the English Channel." We are investigating what exactly happened.

Original story

The English Channel isn't just the body of water that separates Great Britain from its European neighbors, it's also something of a yardstick in aviation. Need to prove that your new flying technology is ready for prime time? Flying the 20.6 miles (33.1km) from Calais to Dover will do that. The first person to reach Great Britain by means other than boat was Louis Blériot in 1909 [edit: in fact, Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries crossed the Channel via balloon in 1785, Matthew Webb swam across in 1785, and in prehistory people walked across a land bridge when sea levels were lower]. More recently, Felix Baumgartner (of the Red Bull Stratos jump) used a carbon fiber wing to skydive across the strait in 2003. Now it's the electric airplane's turn.

Tomorrow, Airbus is going to attempt a Channel crossing with the e-Fan electric airplane, flying from Lydd, UK to Calais, France. The e-Fan is propelled by a pair of ducted fans, good for 80hp (60kW), powered by lithium polymer batteries stored in the plane's carbon fiber wings. But the flight is not without controversy. A rival crossing had been planned for earlier this week by the Slovenian plane builder Pipistrel and its Alpha Electro, a more conventional propeller plane powered by a 67hp (50kW) electric motor. Now Pipistrel is crying foul and blaming a conspiracy between Airbus and Siemens (who supply the electric motor in Pipistrel's Alpha-Electro).

Pipistrel obtained permission from the French civil aviation authority to cross the Channel on July 7, but its plans came to a halt just two days before the attempt. In a statement, Pipistrel's general manager Ivo Boscarol quoted a letter sent to the company by Siemens, which states, "Our Motor in its current version is neither designed, nor tested, nor approved by us for a flight above water—we explicitly prohibit you to use or let anyone else use our Motor for any flight above water."

Pipistrel's US dealer went further, telling FLYER that Airbus' bad sportsmanship was really to blame. "Airbus managed to flex their muscle with Siemens who are supplying motors to Pipistrel and have the Pipistrel motor agreement immediately terminated," it said.

However, in a statement to Ars, Siemens told us that Pipistrel had not informed it in advance about the planned flight, nor was there any agreement between the two companies about the attempt. "We can say that we always liked to drive forward the development of the electrical flying with Pipistrel and did that proactively. In spite of all commitment Siemens would never pull its own safety demands aside—because in the end, flight safety is absolutely crucial," company spokesman Florian Martini said. Siemens also told us that although it had helped Airbus characterize and verify its e-Fan motor, it had no direct involvement with the Airbus e-Fan program.

Airbus referred us to a statement released earlier this week in which the company denied any knowledge of the agreements between Siemens and Pipistrel. “We applaud all efforts to advance electric flight. But all that we do has to meet legal requirements and the highest safety standards. There cannot be any compromise on safety, and the authorities have been very stringent in their requests in order to be able to cross the Channel. Indeed, it would have been fun to cross the Channel together—but this is currently not possible under present circumstances,” the company said (via Twitter, no less). Airbus' statement also focused heavily on the safety measures the company had in place for tomorrow's flight, adding that "[t]here is no comparable status known for any other player."

Meanwhile, the e-Fan's flight is scheduled for tomorrow morning local time. You'll even be able to watch the attempt live as it's being streamed online, starting at 4:15am ET tomorrow (10:15am CET). We'll be watching too.

Listing image by Airbus