The EL9 Ultra Short fixed-wing aircraft can go where helicopters can but for less money and with a further range.

Electric vehicles, including hybrid vehicles, are quite the rage in certain circles, with their share of aficionados and detractors alike. (Full disclosure: I own a 2022 Toyota Corolla Hybrid and am quite happy with it, despite not being an environmental activist.)

But what about going above and beyond ground-based electric vehicles and into the realm of hybrid-electric aircraft? As radical as that notion may sound, that was the subject of a February 20, 2025, speaking engagement at the British Embassy in Washington, DC, titled “The Future of Air Travel,” sponsored by the Royal Aeronautical Society’s (RAeS) Washington, DC branch to inaugurate the Society’s Sir Stuart Matthews Lecture series.

Thanks to the invite of a friend and fellow member of the British Officers Club of Washington DC (BOCDC), I had the honor and pleasure of attending the event and covering it for The National Interest.

Royal Aeronautical Society story in brief

The RAeS was founded in 1866, originally known as The Aeronautical Society of Great Britain. It is the world’s only professional body dedicated to the entire aerospace community, established to further the art, science, and engineering of aeronautics.

As for the RAeS’s Washington, DC branch, it was formally inaugurated on December 17, 2003—coinciding with the centenary of manned flight by the Wright brothers—with the aim of helping promote advances in aviation safety and technology by providing a forum to improve still further the technical, political, and social interchange between U.S. and U.K. aerospace communities.

The DC branch’s founding chairman was the late Sir Stuart Matthews (May 5, 1936-October 13, 2024), the namesake of the lecture series. Among Sir Stuart’s many impressive achievements: earning a pilot license at age seventeen (before he could drive a car); becoming the head of Fokker U.S.A. from 1973 to 1994 (whereupon he pulled off the feat of selling 150 Fokker aircraft to American Airlines); serving as the president and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation from 1994 until his retirement in 2006; and being anointed by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands as a Knight of the Order of Orange Nassau in 1993.

Speaker mini-bio and company profile

The guest speaker was B. Marc Allen, chief executive officer of Electra.aero, a company founded in 2020 “with a simple mission: provide affordable air travel without airports, emissions, or noise.”

Accordingly, Allen is at the forefront of the efforts to develop hybrid-electric Ultra Short aircraft to define the next level of seamless air travel connectivity. Prior to joining Electra, Allen distinguished himself at The Boeing Company, where he held several key leadership roles, including chief strategy officer and senior vice president for strategy and corporate development. Holding an undergraduate degree from Princeton University and a JD from Yale Law School, he also chairs the world’s largest anti-slavery nongovernmental organization, the International Justice Mission.

The Presentation

Allen was introduced by Air Commodore Nikki Thomas, OBE, Royal Air Force (RAF) air and space attaché at the British Embassy, who back in 2015 became the RAF’s first female fast jet squadron commander.

Allen focused his speech on his company’s up-and-coming flagship product, the EL9 Ultra Short fixed-wing aircraft, which can go where helicopters and electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) go, but at an approximately 7% cost savings, and travel much further, with a max range of 1,100 nautical miles (+45-minute reserve). Some additional tech specs and vital stats for the aircraft include:

• Crew: One (pilot)
• Normal Cruise Speed:175 knots
• Capacity: Nine passengers/2,700-lb. payload
• Noise Level: Less than 75 dBA on takeoff (300 feet) comparable to urban background
• Nominal Takeoff and Landing Roll: ~ 150 feet
• Service Ceiling: 6,500 feet

The EL9 has a tripartite intersectional technology suite, consisting of blown-lift, hybrid-electric, and fly-by-wire. The blown-lift aspect provides the Ultra-Short’s chopper-like flight profile, increases wing lift by >3x, and reduces takeoff speed to less than 35 knots.

This highly desirable combination of features unleashes the potential for thousands of new locations for direct air service, including small regional airports or unconventional sites like grass fields or parking lots, offering seamless point-to-point regional connectivity for both cargo and pax alike.

Military Applications for the EL9

The Electra EL9 has potential as a warbird as well. Allen presented one slide which pointed out that four EL9s have twice the payload of one Bell Textron V-280 Valor for half the cost; $4 million per unit vs. about $30 million to $40 million per unit.

During the Q&A session, I asked Allen whether he foresaw the Ultra Short as having a potential role in special operations, such as either supplementing or even supplanting either the V-22 Osprey and/or the U-28A Draco. Marc answered my question thusly:

“We’re not going to replace aircraft where speed is a vital factor, that’s not gonna be our responsibility or role. Where we will replace is where quiet matters, and exfil and infil will benefit from that, and also where there are unique things you want to do on the ground with this, which you can’t do with some of the others. So, there is absolutely a special ops opportunity for this aircraft … Some of the designs, like, the cargo door slides back. Why do we make that investment? Because, it’s easier to jump out of things when they move in the air when it slides back, and it also suits other types of loading, It’s not as good as actually having a ramp—a tail ramp would be awfully sweet, many say—but it is designed with that in mind. Thanks, Chris.”

And thank you for that, Mr. Allen!

About the Author: Christian D. Orr

Christian D. Orr was previously a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ) and 19FortyFive. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). If you’d like to pick his brain further, you can ofttimes find him at the Old Virginia Tobacco Company (OVTC) lounge in Manassas, Virginia, partaking of fine stogies and good quality human camaraderie.

Image: Shutterstock.

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