The Little Plane That Hopped Everywhere

A fairy tale of the future

image from vecteezy.com

The big planes were sad. They couldn’t fly anymore because they couldn’t get any fuel. Their fuel wasn’t made anymore because everything had to be electrified. The big planes were scared, too, because they knew they were going to be torn apart and made into scrap metal.

But there was a new, little plane that was excited because she was going to be busy. You see, she was an electric plane, so she didn’t need any fuel. She flew on battery power. She was very proud because she didn’t have any emissions like those awful big old planes.

The reason she was little was because her battery was very heavy, and the airline she worked for wanted to try small electric planes before launching bigger ones. Her airline was very smart, and knew they couldn’t afford the big expensive batteries unless someone else paid for them. They were waiting for approval for more subsidies and permission from the authorities like the FAA to triple their ticket prices, before building any big planes.

So our little plane was a test, paid for by a grant from the federal government.

The big day came for the first test run across the country. Her passengers were as excited as she was. The little plane had full power instantly, because that’s how electric motors work. She did need a very long runway, though, because her battery was so heavy. She took off from the west coast and headed east.

After an hour in the air, the electronic gauge that kept track of battery power was in the red zone. That meant she had to find a place to land very quickly before she was completely out of power. Fortunately, there was an airport close enough that she could make it.

She was also very fortunate that the airport where she landed had a fast charger. It would only take about 24 hours to recharge the battery. Of course it was much bigger than a car battery. The airline reluctantly paid for motel rooms where the passengers could stay until the plane was recharged. People wanting to charge their cars got mad because one charger was tied up for 24 hours and so lines formed on the other chargers.

Now that the little electric plane knew she could only stay airborne for an hour, she had to plan her route so that she could hop from one airport to another every day. She also had to make sure those airport stops had fast chargers and nearby motels.

They finally made it to the east coast destination 4 days later. Some passengers were upset because they missed important business meetings. The airline managers were upset because they had lost a lot of money on motels. The motel owners were happy though.

The airline brought the little electric plane back to the west coast with no passengers so they could save money. With no passengers, the plane was lighter, so it only took 3 days.  The managers went back to the drawing board to see how to make more little planes that could hop from one airport to the next after an hour of flying. More airports were needed. More chargers were needed. And more subsidies were needed.

But the little electric plane was happy to be a part of such a wonderful new hopping industry, and was famous for being the first.