Green Flying Machine

Futuristic electric vertical-takeoff air taxis have grabbed all the headlines—and billions in venture dollars—but Singapore-based investor Richard Chandler thinks he has a better idea: conventional battery-powered aircraft that are cheaper to fly and more reliable than turboprops.

The quiet of a frigid November afternoon in eastern Washington state is shattered by an earsplitting roar as an F/A-18 fighter jet screams down the runway at Grant County International Airport, barreling past rows of undelivered Boeing 737 MAX jets. Inside a nearby hangar is a gleaming white airplane that could be a key step on the journey to silencing those jets and erasing their greenhouse gas emissions: the Eviation Alice. The elegant twin-engine, which resembles a Cessna Citation crossed with a balloon animal, is entirely battery-powered and in September became the heaviest electric plane, at more than 16,000 pounds, ever to take flight.

For Richard Chandler, the 63-yearold Singapore-based billionaire investor who controls Eviation and the company that makes Alice’s electric engines, MagniX, it’s personal. An uncle on his father’s side, George Watt, was an RAF test pilot during World War II who worked on the Allies’ first jet engine. An uncle on his mother’s side, Tony Guina, is a car mechanic turned inventor who worked for years developing highpowered electric motors. For years, the New Zealand-born Chandler funded Guina’s work—mostly as a favor to

his mother. Chandler kicked around the idea of plugging those engines into Jeepneys in Manila to cut air pollution, but it became apparent that they would always be too expensive for buses. Then, in 2017, he was advised that they might be perfect for airplanes.