Electric Plane Makes Historic Flight

A French pilot has flown across the English Channel in an electric-powered plane, a journey considered an important symbolic step toward making electric flight viable in the long term. Pilot Hugues Duval flew from the French port of Calais to the English shoreline and back last night on a two-engine, one-seat Cricri plane—just hours before Airbus planned a similar, higher-profile journey. Airbus plans to send its electric plane prototype, the two-seater E-Fan, across the Channel for the first time this morning. Duval tells the AP that his successful flight, which comes 106 years after a plane first flew across the channel, was a "relief" and an "important moment" after years of developing the plane and flying it over land. (More air travel stories.)