Overview
- Bye Aerospace completed the eFlyer 2's maiden flight on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, from Centennial Airport near Denver with chief test pilot Elliot Seguin and said the short test collected handling, aerodynamic, propulsion and systems data with no maintenance discrepancies reported.
- The flight begins a formal flight‑test program under a Special Airworthiness Certificate from the FAA that Bye says will feed the evidence package the agency needs for certification.
- Company documents and coverage report the aircraft uses a 125 kW electric motor and about a 90 kWh battery, and Bye projects more than two hours endurance and recharge times under 30 minutes though those figures remain to be validated in extended testing.
- Bye cites supplier partnerships and an orderbook of more than 1,000 eFlyer 2 and eFlyer 4 units with named buyers such as Spartan College, Skyborne Academy, Flex Air Flight School and KLM Academy, creating both market demand and delivery dependencies on component partners.
- Bye projects roughly 24 months of intensive testing with deliveries targeted in mid‑to‑late‑2028, but the company has a history of schedule slips and the broader FAA rules for electric aircraft are still evolving, so certification and customer deliveries remain provisional and worth close monitoring.