Another milestone - Hybrid plane makes its maiden flight
 

Six-seat C337 skymaster, is this the first and only hybrid-electric plane?

Not the first but supposedly the largest so far.

A team from Cambridge and Boeing flew a hybrid demonstrator back in 2014.

Also of note is Diamond's hybrid twin.

Thanks futurama, for those vids. Very interesting.

But how annoying, in the Deutsche Welle vid of the Ampaire, that they chose to have elevator music in the background, rather than the actual sound of the aircraft. Presumably it is significantly quieter, when running electrically. Or maybe not....

airsound

How does a hybrid aircraft work out, in terms of power budget? A hybrid road vehicle is good for urban use, because there's a lot of deceleration which can be used to recharge the battery, but for long journeys at steady speed the only advantage is that you can size the ICE for cruising power. I'd have thought aviation would be much closer to the long trip case than the heavy traffic one.