- Who
- Steve Jones, Spirit of Innovation, Rolls Royce
- What
- 555.9 kilometre(s) per hour
- Where
- United Kingdom (Boscombe Down)
- When
The fastest electric aircraft is the Spirit of Innovation, built by Rolls Royce (UK). On 16 November 2021, test pilot Steve Jones (UK) achieved an average speed of 555.9 km/h (345.4 mph) over a 3-km course at the Ministry of Defence's Boscombe Down test range in Wiltshire, UK.
The Spirit of Innovation set two records: one for speed over 3-km and one for speed over 15 km, both of which were verified by the FAI in January 2022. During the 3-km run, it achieved a peak speed of 623 km/h (387.4 mph). Its average speed over a 3-km course exceeded the previous record (set by Siemens pilot Walter Kampsmann in 2013) by more than 213 km/h (132 mph).
The Spirit of Innovation was designed as part of Rolls Royce's Accel project, which is intended to fast-track innovation in electric aircraft design. It is built around the airframe of a Nemesis NXT racing plane, with a 400 kW (536 hp) electric motor drawing from a 6580-cell lithium-ion battery back.
