Ideas worth spreading

The future of flying is electrifying

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Cory Combs |

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• March 2021

If you're a frequent flier, you're also a major polluter. What if there was a way to travel the world with less impact on the environment? In this quick, exciting talk, aviation entrepreneur and TED Fellow Cory Combs lays out how electric aircraft could make flying cleaner, quieter and more affordable -- and shares his work on Electric EEL, the largest hybrid-electric plane ever to fly.

If you're a frequent flier, you're also a major polluter. What if there was a way to travel the world with less impact on the environment? In this quick, exciting talk, aviation entrepreneur and TED Fellow Cory Combs lays out how electric aircraft could make flying cleaner, quieter and more affordable -- and shares his work on Electric EEL, the largest hybrid-electric plane ever to fly.

About the speaker

Cory Combs

Electric aviation entrepreneur

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By retrofitting existing aircraft with a hybrid-electric system, mechanical engineer Cory Combs is building the biggest plane ever to fly with hybrid propulsion: the Electric EEL.

Kevin Noertker | Medium, 2021 | Article

"Following in the Footsteps of Giants"

This article by Ampaire helps explain the key importance of demonstrating operations of electric planes globally on actual routes. In doing so, we are following in the footsteps of early aviation pioneers.

Cory Combs, et al. | NASA, 2021 | Article

Regional Air Mobility

This NASA Regional Air Mobility paper, which I authored along with other contributors from across the industry, is a landmark look at how the US can transform its aviation ecosystem. The path toward sustainable regional air mobility suggested here is replicable in many other regions worldwide — especially those with a high density of airports, long distances or geographic barriers, and a lack of sustainable rapid transport solutions.

Ranjan Vepa | CRC Press, 2021 | Book

Electric Aircraft Dynamics: A Systems Engineering Approach

The electric aircraft industry is so new there are hardly any books extant, so we are writing the history of e-aircraft daily with our continued innovations! However, this book provides a technical perspective on what is required for planes to go electric.

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