Six Washington airports want to charge ahead preparing for electric aircraft
The managers of half a dozen Washington airports see a future where you could hop across Puget Sound or the Cascade Mountains in minutes on a non-polluting electric commuter plane or air taxi. They want to be ready for that day by winning government funding to install pricey charging stations for battery-powered aircraft now.
A bunch of manufacturers have flown small prototypes of all-electric passenger aircraft, but none are certified for commercial service in North America. The electric aviation sector is still at a very early stage where many things are unclear, including key questions such as what charging standard to use and whether rechargeable batteries will even be broadly adopted for flight propulsion.
The six public airports that threw in together on a federal grant application for airside charging infrastructure are Chehalis-Centralia, Yakima, Friday Harbor, Port Angeles, Everett’s Paine Field and Boeing Field in Seattle. Chehalis-Centralia took the lead on the nearly $10 million funding request, which would pay for one or two charging stations per airport.
“Right now, we are in somewhat of a chicken-and-egg type scenario where we don’t have the aircraft certified yet and we don’t have the infrastructure to support the aircraft yet,” said Chehalis-Centralia Airport Director Brandon Rakes.
https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2024/10/03/six-washington-airports-want-to-charge-ahead-installing-electric-airplane-chargers/