For the last four years, one man has laboured away, mostly alone, in an unheated hangar in South Norfolk, to build Britain’s first all electric light aircraft. This week, the NUNCATS Electric SkyJeep took to the air, rising for the first time to 700 feet in two long faultless looping flights. Tim Bridge’s dream was real at last.
The Electric SkyJeep is not like the experimental aircraft being built, at huge expense, by aircraft companies around the world. Like its namesake, it aims to be a simple, basic and cheap workhorse. It takes a tried and tested kitform light aircraft, replaces its petrol engine with an electric motor, and its fuel tanks with batteries. Simplicity is where the company gets its name NUNCATS (‘No Unnecessary Novelty Community Air Transport’)
So the Electric SkyJeep is ideal for the uses for which it is designed – delivering medical help to isolated villages in Africa, and offering cheap flying to flying schools and hobbyists in the USA and Europe.
The Electric SkyJeep is not like the experimental aircraft being built, at huge expense, by aircraft companies around the world. Like its namesake, it aims to be a simple, basic and cheap workhorse. It takes a tried and tested kitform light aircraft, replaces its petrol engine with an electric motor, and its fuel tanks with batteries. Simplicity is where the company gets its name NUNCATS (‘No Unnecessary Novelty Community Air Transport’)
So the Electric SkyJeep is ideal for the uses for which it is designed – delivering medical help to isolated villages in Africa, and offering cheap flying to flying schools and hobbyists in the USA and Europe.
