As he became the first person to fly across New Zealand's Cook Strait in an electric plane, Gary Freedman thought it only fitting the first thing he saw when approaching the Wellington coastline was the rotating blade of a wind turbine.
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Monday's flight was aimed at drawing attention to the possibilities of greener flying and timed to coincide with the opening of a pivotal UN climate summit in Scotland.
Freedman's 40-minute solo flight in the small two-seater aircraft came 101 years after the first person flew a conventional plane over the body of water that separates the nation's two main islands.
Freedman said the day began badly with pouring rain at his departure point near the town of Blenheim on the South Island.
After delaying the flight for 15 minutes, the weather cleared just enough for takeoff and soon improved to sunny conditions over the Cook Strait.
Freedman said he was ecstatic when he landed, and the technology worked better than he had hoped.
"We still had 40 per cent left in the battery," he said. "We could have almost flown back again."
Freedman, 49, who founded the company ElectricAir, said he has long been passionate about the environment and the idea came as he thought about the incongruity of driving an electric car but flying a petrol-powered plane.
He travelled to Slovenia to buy a Pipistrel Alpha Electro plane, and then jumped through various hoops with New Zealand aviation regulators to get the plane cleared.
It weighs less than 400kg and is much quieter than a traditional aircraft.
For the 75km trip from Blenheim to Wellington, Freedman flew at just 305m above sea level and at the relatively slow speed of 130km/h in order to preserve the aircraft's charge.
Freedman said it takes about one hour to fully charge the plane. The maximum flight time is also about an hour, and he mainly uses it for pilot training.
Wellington International Airport is preparing for regular short-hop flights of new 12-seater electric planes that will begin in about five years' time, said airport spokeswoman Jenna Raeburn.
She said electric technology is not yet advanced enough to power large passenger planes, but biofuels and hydrogen are likely to provide greener alternatives in the future.
Australian Associated Press
