The world's first fully electric airplane took its first flight earlier this week, taking off from the western Canadian city of Vancouver and flying along the Fraser River for 15 minutes.

"This proves that commercial aviation in all-electric form can work," said Roei Ganzarski, chief executive of Seattle-based engineering firm MagniX, which has an engineering facility in Gold Coast, QLD.  "The (flight) range now is not where we'd love it to be, but it's enough to start the revolution," he added.

MagniX designed the plane's motor and worked in partnership with Harbour Air, which flies between Vancouver, BC and the surrounding islands, and the Whistler ski resort.  They installed it in a 62-year-old, six-passenger DHC-2 de Havilland Beaver seaplane.  Harbour Air's founder and chief executive Greg McDougall took the controls.

"For me that flight was just like flying a Beaver, but it was a Beaver on electric steroids," McDougall said.  "I actually had to back off on the power."

Making that power last will be the next challenge, because the lithium batteries that exist now are only good for about 160 kilometers of flight.  That's good for some of Harbour's shorter routes, and McDougall said he plans on electrifying the company's entire fleet in two years.