Magpie Aviation announced a novel new approach to electric airplanes on Monday. Today’s battery technology (including CATL’s new, more efficient one) severely limits the practicality of zero-emission aircraft, leaving clean-energy innovators with two incomplete options: flying a plane full of batteries or one full of people — but not both. So the California-based startup wants to tie them together, extending the rear plane’s range by hundreds of miles.Towing planes isn’t a new concept, with military use going back to World War II when aerial tows would pull smaller aircraft carrying troops and supplies. But applying it to the world of green transportation is new. Magpie Aviation’s concept uses one or more electric aircraft to act as a tractor plane towing a passenger (or cargo) aircraft using a long cable. The towed plane would have enough battery power for takeoff, landing and flying to alternate airports but not enough to fly the full distance on its own, as reported byAe
