Could the Prius of Planes Be the Next Air Taxi?

Ultrashorts can land in tight spaces like helicopters. One landed this week at the Downtown Skyport.

Good morning. It's Tuesday. Today we'll find out about an aircraft that looks like a plane but landed at a heliport in Lower Manhattan. We'll also get details on a ruling by a federal judge that said that the Trump administration illegally fired Maurene Comey, a former federal prosecutor and the daughter of one of the president's nemeses.

Some 125 landings were expected at the Downtown Skyport on Monday. All but the first one involved helicopters.

That one was an airplane, a yellow two-seater. It rolled to a stop less than 100 feet from where its wheels touched the pavement. That is a fraction of the stopping distance that a conventional plane would need. The runways at LaGuardia Airport are 1.36 miles long.

The flight was a demonstration of an ultrashort aircraft, as the manufacturer calls it. The plane flew in from New Jersey, cruising over Governors Island and turning to land with the Brooklyn Bridge in the background and rush-hour ferries hustling across the East River. It is powered by a hybrid-electric system that J.P. Stewart -- a senior vice president of the company that designed it, Electra.aero -- compared to the Toyota Prius.

Before it arrived, Marc Allen, Electra's chief executive, talked about how the nine-passenger model Electra plans to build could land in other tight spaces -- "the parking lot of a mall," much like a helicopter, he said.

"For 100 years, we've had a trade-off," he said. "Helicopters gave you access, but they were loud, they were expensive, and they couldn't carry a lot of weight or go very far. Airplanes gave you efficiency, payload, range and safety." He said that ultrashorts could combine the two, with a range of about 575 miles and cruising speed of about 200 miles per hour.

A New York-to-Boston flight would take a little less than an hour, and a trip to Washington a little more, with fewer hassles than a commercial flight or a ride on Amtrak's Acela. "You either have the friction going out to LaGuardia or J.F.K. or Newark," he said, "or you have that train, which is stopping everywhere along the way." The company is looking to build a nine-passenger model the size of a single-engine Cessna Caravan.

The Federal Aviation Administration will use data from test flights like the one on Monday to develop new regulations, and new aircraft will have to undergo testing and be certified to carry passengers. Laurie Garrow, an aviation expert at the Georgia Institute of Technology, called the company's timeline "an optimistic goal" but added that "it is not outside the realm of possibility."

Electra's ultrashort is one of a number of advanced air mobility projects in the works. Earlier in the year, the federal Department of Transportation chose eight projects, including the one involving Electra.

Joby, another electric aviation company that did a demonstration flight in New York several months ago, is working on a different type of aircraft that it sees as the centerpiece of an air taxi service -- an aircraft that lifts off like a helicopter and then flies like an airplane, with engines that swivel, depending on direction. On a test flight in April, a Joby carrying only the pilot flew from J.F.K. to Manhattan in less than 10 minutes.

"The problem with transportation is you can go short distances pretty efficiently, and you can go long distances efficiently, but the 150-mile range is difficult," said Maxine Lubner, a professor at Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology in Queens, who, like Garrow, was not involved in the demonstration. Electra's aircraft "seems to be an answer to that problem," she said.

The pilot on the demonstration run, Cody Allee, flew F-18 fighter jets for the Marines. "We've modeled this on how the Navy lands on a carrier," he said, though landing spots like the heliport don't have cables that catch tailhooks and bring aircraft to a safe stop. "We're going slow enough that we can stop with just the brakes," he said.

So what is a ride in an Electra like? Allee did not take passengers up during the demonstration. But Chris Courtin, the company's director of technology development, said takeoffs "look dramatic from the outside."

Being inside is "quite a benign experience," he said. "It feels like an elevator" on takeoff.

"You go up two floors, and you're just flying along. You don't feel like you're in a rocket ship."

Weather

A sunny day is ahead with a high near 62. Expect mostly clear skies in the evening as temperatures drop near 44.

ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING

In effect until Sunday (All Saints' Day).

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"We believe in the American dream. We believe in a country that has opportunities." -- Khadim Ndiaye, who migrated from Senegal and is trying to live on what he makes as a street vendor in Manhattan.

The latest New York news

* Underdog challenger to Letitia James: Saritha Komatireddy, who criticized the state attorney general on the Cornell University sexual assault case, has picked up support from Republican donors. She is running as a crime fighter.

* The race for governor: Gov. Kathy Hochul and her Republican opponent, Bruce Blakeman, barnstormed over the weekend as early voting began. Nearly twice as many New Yorkers cast their ballots on the first day of early voting as compared with four years ago. Early voting continues through Nov. 1.

* Where's the best place to cry in the city? The New York Times wants to know about the strangest, most comforting, most cinematic and most unexpected places you've cried in, in public.

* The self-proclaimed "furniture queen" of New York: Outside her 9-to-5 at the city's Human Resources Administration, Regina Carter uses some of her $48,000 salary to rent trucks so she can pick up discarded furniture and donate it to her neighbors in the Bronx public housing complex where she lives.

Firing Maurene Comey was unlawful, a judge says

In 55 pages, a federal judge in Manhattan wrote that the Justice Department violated the separation of powers -- and Maurene Comey's due process rights -- when it fired her last year.

She is a well-regarded former federal prosecutor who had handled the prosecutions of Jeffrey Epstein and Sean Combs. She is also the daughter of James Comey, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and one of President Trump's nemeses. She has said that the only possible reasons for her dismissal were who her father is and her "perceived political affiliation and beliefs."

The Justice Department had argued that Pam Bondi, the attorney general when Comey was fired, had the authority to let her go. But Judge Jesse Furman rejected the administration's rationale, saying that assenting to it would "unsettle the very equilibrium established by this nation's constitutional system." He said that under the constitutional separation of powers, laws passed by Congress limit the executive branch's power to remove assistant U.S. attorneys.

Judge Furman ruled that Comey is entitled to back pay through December 2025. He did not rule on her claim that the firing violated the First Amendment, by retaliating against her for her father's protected free speech. He asked each side in the case to provide additional arguments on that point.

My colleague Santul Nerkar writes that the ruling could open a path for other fired government workers who are seeking to appeal terminations that the administration has justified by citing Trump's sweeping presidential powers. Comey argued that neither the president nor the attorney general had the authority to discharge rank-and-file prosecutors, who are protected under civil service law.

Her lawyers said in a statement that the decision "reaffirms our bedrock system of checks and balances." The Justice Department said that it disagreed with the ruling and would appeal "in due course."

METROPOLITAN diary

WFH

Dear Diary:

It was a remote-work day, and I was at home in Greenpoint. While waiting for a call from my supervisor, I decided to take out the trash. I brought my work phone with me in case the call came while I was out.

Opening the chute with a bag of trash in one hand and the phone in the other, I fumbled, and the chute swallowed the phone. I imagined it falling 37 floors with my supervisor on the other end waiting for me to pick up.

I rushed to the lobby and explained the problem to the doorman.

"Why would you do that?" he asked.

Several members of the building's staff, working together, retrieved the phone from the bottom of the chute, where they found it wedged between trash bags functioning as airbags.

With a grin, one of them handed it to me.

It was ringing.

-- Maria Lobato Grabowsky

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.

Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. -- J.B.