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Not cool how they frame the story to make it sound like the municipalities in question were responsible for making the plane.

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Agreed! They didn’t even mention the manufacturer of the airplane but mentioned the relevant government initiative at least twice. Reads like a city hall press release.

Considering how hard it is to get new technologies pushed through municipal red tape, the framing of this as a “city hall press release” was likely the manufacturer’s idea, part of a deal they made in exchange for some consideration for changing municipal airspace regulations to allow testing.

See also: driverless cars.

Municipalities don't have airspace regulations. That's all managed federally. Also the Alpha Electro is already legal to test. It's apparently registered as an Experimental aircraft in the US currently, which means it can be used by owners but not commercially (e.g. for flight training). The market Pipistrel's aiming for is the Light Sport Aircraft category, but electric planes can't be registered as LSA in the US so Pipistrel would have to go through the standard airworthiness certification process. Which is long and expensive.

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