Eviation Aircraft this week unveiled the revised design for its Alice all-electric aircraft, confirming its plans to complete FAA type certification in time for entry into service in 2024. In an announcement on July 1, the company said the aircraft will make its first test before the end of this year.
The newly published design drawings reveal significant changes from an earlier prototype, with a new T-tail configuration replacing a distinctive V-shaped tail. The Alice’s two MagniX Magni650 electric propulsion units (EPUs) have been relocated from the wingtips to a pylon mount at the rear of the fuselage.
“We moved from a V-tail to a T-tail to optimize performance and handling and make it easy and reliable for pilots to seamlessly transition to flying the aircraft,” a company spokeswoman told FutureFlight.
In addition to two crew seats, the Alice will be able to carry up to nine passengers in various applications that could include air taxi or sub-regional scheduled airlines services. The aircraft is projected to have a range of up to around 500 miles at speeds of just over 250 mph.
In May, MagniX delivered the first Magni650 EPUs to Eviation. Singapore-based Clermont Group owns the two companies.
Eviation has sublet several hangars at Arlington Airport in Washington state and has spent at least $300,000 to renovate the facility to support its plans for the Alice development work. MagniX is based in nearby Everett and its president, Roei Ganzarski, is executive chairman of Eviation.
Other key program partners announced so far include Honeywell Aerospace, which is providing the Alice’s fly-by-wire flight control system, and aerostructures group GKN Aerospace. On June 3, GKN said that it has delivered the first fully integrated wings, empennage, and electrical wiring interconnection systems for the aircraft from its facility at Bristol in the UK.
“Sharing our production Alice design is a special day for Eviation and our partners,” said Eviation CEO Omer Bar-Yohay. “Electric aviation will continue to open up new possibilities for affordable, sustainable regional travel around the world. Alice is poised to turn that possibility into a reality soon.”
According to Eviation, it has sufficient funding to take the Alice into production and, for now, has the human resources it needs to advance the program to certification under FAA Part 23 rules. In May, Gregory Davis joined the company as president. He was formerly a vice president with aircraft aftermarket services group Viking Air and before that worked for Marshall Aerospace and Defence.
The earlier Alice prototype was first publicly exhibited at the Paris Air Show in June 2019. It was moved to Eviation’s then development site in Phoenix but never began flight trials after being damaged in January 2020 when a ground-based battery system caught fire.
