Off the News: Iolani School’s electric plane

It’s a soaring achievement: Since 2017, students at Iolani School have worked to build an electric ultralight aircraft, designing the battery-powered propulsion system and dashboard components, fabricating the prototype plane, waiting out two pandemic-interrupted years and forging past failed trials to bring the project to a successful stage.

The full-sized, motorized aircraft is 19 1/2 feet long and has a 37-foot wingspan. Students have named it E-Hawk. Test flights for the single-seat plane come next, now that it’s been certified airworthy as an experimental aircraft by the Federal Aviation Administration. Fly right, E-Hawk!