By Omar Kardoudi
June 12, 2026
On June 5, test pilot Miguel Iturmendi lifted off from Zephyrhills Municipal Airport in Florida at the controls of the Helios Horizon – the first crewed, fixed-wing aircraft ever to fly on solid-state batteries. The flight was neither spectacular in distance nor in duration – it was a series of short tests to validate the aircraft's weight and balance after the new batteries had been installed – but it didn't need to be to make history.
Electric aviation has always been held back by the same physics problem. Conventional lithium-ion batteries, the chemistry behind most electric cars, use a liquid electrolyte to move charge between electrodes. That liquid architecture stores too little energy per kilogram to make commercially useful flights realistic.
Solid-state batteries replace that liquid with solid materials, making cells more resistant to impact, puncture, and heat, dramatically reducing fire risk, and – most importantly – packing far more energy into the same weight.
https://newatlas.com/aircraft/helios-ho ... -aviation/