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Coming soon: An electric airplane for only $34,000

By | June 18, 2012, 5:48 AM PDT

Last year, a little known start-up generated a lot of excitement within the aviation community when they introduced the Flynano, an aircraft billed as the worlds first affordable electric airplane.

At the time, the developers released some tantalizing details about the aircraft. For instance, it was ultra-lightweight, coming in at a mere 155 pounds thanks to a body frame made entirely of lightweight carbon fiber composite materials. It also comes in three different flavors, which includes a model equipped with a 20kW all-electric engine capable of a top speed of 87 mph and a range of 25 miles on a full charge. Prices started at about $34,000 and you wouldn´t even need a pilots license to operate one.

See also: Store offers innovative flying hovercraft for $190,000

Sound too good to be true? Well, many of you did question the company´s legitimacy, namely because no one´s ever seen the darn thing actually fly.

So to convince the doubters that, yes, it´s a real airplane and, yes, there are plans to sell the plane, the company recently posted footage of the Flynano conducting test flights.

A final design is scheduled for next year with a launch date at the end of 2013. But let´s hope by then the Flynano can deliver on the promised pricing.

More innovative aircraft tech:

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Tuan C. Nguyen

About Tuan C. Nguyen

Tuan C. Nguyen was a contributing editor for SmartPlanet from 2011 to 2013.

Tuan C. Nguyen

Tuan C. Nguyen

Contributing Editor

Tuan C. Nguyen is a freelance science journalist based in New York City. He has written for the U.S. News and World Report, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC News, AOL, Yahoo! News and LiveScience. Formerly, he was reporter and producer for the technology section of ABCNews.com. He holds degrees from the University of California Los Angeles and the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism.

Follow him on Twitter.

Tuan C. Nguyen

Tuan C. Nguyen

Tuan C. Nguyen does not hold any investments in the technology companies he covers.

He writes for SmartPlanet and is not an employee of CBS.

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Skeptical . . .
A few seconds of video of it flying? We're supposed to get excited over that? Good luck to them, but I'm still skeptical. And the poor grammar at the beginning of the video kind of makes them seem a little lacking in the attention to detail department and that's kind of important for flying machines.
Posted by GTGeek88
18th Jun
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Seems to have blind spot
The structural support going from the front fuselage up to the prop is smack dab in front of the pilot. I think a redesign is called for. 25 miles is not much range. If they can get it to do some gliding with engine off, that would raise interest and range too.
Posted by oceanpine@...
19th Jun
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Almost interesting
The planes carbon fiber wt. is interesting. The cost of this electric powered design compared to other ultra-lights - especially ICE motorized parasail designs is very pricey, but the range is not comparable (much lower) and a non-starter.
Posted by dduggerbiocepts
21st Jun
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