FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Chip Yates Becomes World’s Fastest Electric Aircraft Pilot by Breaking the 200-MPH Barrier for the First Time

Inyokern Airport, California, July 20, 2012—-Infinite-range electric aerospace company Flight of the Century,  Inc. (www.flightofthecentury.com) announced today that their all-electric Long-ESA achieved a speed of 202.6-MPH during its second ever test flight on July 19, 2012 at Inyokern Airport in California.

The feat marks the second time within the past 12 months that Yates has exceeded 200 MPH in an electric vehicle of his own design – the first being his roadracing superbike which earned 8 official FIM World Records at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Sept, 2011 and currently holds the Guinness World Record title of “World’s Fastest Electric Motorcycle”.

Purchased by Flight of the Century (FOTC) in April, 2012 as an R&D plane for development of the company’s patented mid-air recharging technology, the highly modified Rutan Long-EZ (now “Long-ESA” for Electric Speed & Altitude) underwent a complete restoration and conversion from gasoline power to all-electric power in just two months at FOTC headquarters.

The unprecedented test program then moved to FOTC’s Inyokern Airport facility, with a first taxi test July 14^th, first runway test July 16^th, first flight July 18^th, and world record flight July 19^th.

FOTC is engaged in a cooperative relationship with the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, who deployed high speed telemetry, radar and tracking cameras to capture Yates’ historic flight adjacent to their restricted airspace.  After the flight, officials from China Lake visited the FOTC hangar at Inyokern Airport to corroborate the flight data, which will presented at Oshkosh.

Military and special operations interest in FOTC’s unique high speed, long/infinite range electric manned and UAV technology is piqued because radar has difficulty locking onto the composite structure and infrared cameras struggle to find any measurable heat signature from the all-electric powerplant to track with.

“Our ability to fly long and fast without detection has definitely raised some eyebrows”, said FOTC CEO and test pilot Chip Yates.  “I want to see our high-performance electric powertrain and mid-air recharging systems used to advance the cause of electric airplanes in general, and in the short term, the military applications are really interesting”.

FOTC engineers have abbreviated and expedited the initial taxi/flight test program in order to quickly generate data, video and knowledge to share with some 550,000 attendees at the 2012 EAA AirVenture Oshkosh event, which runs July 23-29, 2012 (airventure.org) and where the record-setting Long-ESA will be on central display along with Chip’s Guinness World Record holding electric superbike in the Innovations Hangar-South.

Following Oshkosh, the company intends to equip the Long-ESA with a custom designed lithium-ion series of battery packs and a front-mounted recharging probe to test mid-air tethering and battery jettison & rebalance technologies.  The company expects a top speed of 230-250 MPH with the full-size battery pack in place in September.  Attempts at world records for altitude will follow.

**MEDIA ALERT**

A teaser highlight video of excerpts from the flight is below. The full length videos were shot for, and are being released as part of, Chip’s electric aviation presentations at Oshkosh. Expect complete, full-length videos and telemetry from the record breaking flight, including Chip’s dramatic dead-stick landing, to be made available after they are first presented at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh next week.

MEDIA IMAGE/VIDEO DOWNLOADS:

Electric Long-ESA: Still shots from World Record Breaking Flight 7/19/12:

https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0Bw4i_ga8XY0OT3piUzM3eUplVXM/edit

VIDEO: Fastest Electric Airplane in the World – Teaser Video (Full length and additional videos to follow after being presented at Oshkosh):

http://youtu.be/wPK7649SrDA

Press inquiries: info@flightofthecentury.com

More information: www.flightofthecentury.com

Twitter Updates & Breaking News: @ChipFlight

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