---
title: "Ten-Engine Electric Plane Completes Successful Flight Test"
description: "Imagine a battery-powered plane that has 10 engines and can take off like a helicopter and fly efficiently like an aircraft; NASA's developing it."
date: "2015-05-04"
modified: "2015-08-13"
authors:
  - name: "Kayleen Carr"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/kayleen"
url: "https://futurism.com/ten-engine-electric-plane-completes-successful-flight-test"
categories:
  - "Advanced Transport"
  - "Electric Vehicles"
tags:
  - "transport"
---

# Ten-Engine Electric Plane Completes Successful Flight Test

![Default Futurism featured image](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Futurism-Filler-Image.jpg>)

- The GL-10 is currently in the design and testing phase. The initial thought was to develop a 20-foot wingspan (6.1 meters) aircraft powered by hybrid diesel/electric engines, but the team started with smaller versions for testing, built by rapid prototyping.
- During a recent spring day the engineers took the GL-10 to test its wings at a military base about two hours away from NASA Langley. The remotely piloted plane has a 10-foot wingspan (3.05 meters), eight electric motors on the wings, two electric motors on the tail and weighs a maximum of 62 pounds (28.1 kilograms) at take off.
- It had already passed hover tests -- flying like a helicopter -- with flying colors. But now was the big hurdle -- the transition from vertical to forward "wing-borne" flight. As engineers who have designed full-scale vertical take off and landing tiltrotors such as the V-22 Osprey will tell you -- that is no easy task because of the challenging flight aerodynamics.