Hydrogen powered flight takes centre stage as future of commercial aviation

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There is a lot of work getting under way on hydrogen powered flight - a concept likely to lead to demonstrators late in this decade and commercial products in the middle of the next. Battery powered electric flight is likely to be limited to small aircraft, short hauls, because of battery weight. For larger aircraft flying most routes, hydrogen for internal combustion seems like the more likely direction. Either hydrogen burned like Jet-A, or hydrogen driving a generator to make electricity onboard. (Think of a diesel electric railway locomotive - the Diesel engine generates electricity to power traction motors in the bogies.) 

 

Here are some developments. Hydrogen electric flight

https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/zeroavia-completes-world-first-hydrogen-electric-passenger-plane-flight-827785098.html

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- Leading innovator in the decarbonisation of aviation makes major breakthrough with first hydrogen fuel cell flight of a commercial-size aircraft

- ZeroAvia's retrofitted Piper M-class is now the largest hydrogen powered aircraft in the world

LONDON, Sept. 24, 2020 /CNW/ -- ZeroAvia, the leading innovator in decarbonising commercial aviation, has completed the world first hydrogen fuel cell powered flight of a commercial-grade aircraft. The flight took place yesterday at the company's R&D facility in Cranfield, England, with the Piper M-class six-seat plane completing taxi, takeoff, a full pattern circuit, and landing.

ZeroAvia, the leading innovator in decarbonising commercial aviation, has completed the world first hydrogen fuel cell powered flight of a commercial-grade aircraft.

ZeroAvia, the leading innovator in decarbonising commercial aviation, has completed the world first hydrogen fuel cell powered flight of a commercial-grade aircraft.

ZeroAvia's achievement is the first step to realising the transformational possibilities of moving from fossil fuels to zero-emission hydrogen as the primary energy source for commercial aviation. Eventually, and without any new fundamental science required, hydrogen-powered aircraft will match the flight distances and payload of the current fossil fuel aircraft. 

This major milestone on the road to commercial zero-emission flight is part of the HyFlyer project, a sequential R&D programme supported by the UK Government and follows the UK's first ever commercial-scale battery-electric flight, conducted in the same aircraft in June. ZeroAvia will now turn its attention to the next and final stage of its six-seat development program - a 250-mile zero emission flight out of an airfield in Orkney before the end of the year. The demonstration of this range is roughly equivalent to busy major routes such as Los Angeles to San Francisco or Londonto Edinburgh.

Val Miftakhov, CEO, ZeroAvia comments: "It's hard to put into words what this means to our team, but also for everybody interested in zero-emission flight. While some experimental aircraft have flown using hydrogen fuel cells as a power source, the size of this commercially available aircraft shows that paying passengers could be boarding a truly zero-emission flight very soon. All of the team at ZeroAvia and at our partner companies can be proud of their work getting us to this point, and I want to also thank our investors and the UK Government for their support."

Aviation Minister Robert Courts said: "Aviation is a hotbed of innovation and ZeroAvia's fantastic technology takes us all one step closer to a sustainable future for air travel. Through our ground-breaking Jet Zero partnership we're working hard with industry to drive innovation in zero carbon flight, and we look forward to seeing the sector go from strength to strength."

Business and Industry Minister Nadhim Zahawi said: "Developing aircraft that create less pollution will help the UK make significant headway in achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Backed by Government funding, this flight is another exciting milestone in ZeroAvia's project. It shows that technologies to clean up air travel are now at our fingertips - with enormous potential to build back better and drive clean economic growth in the UK."

ZeroAvia's innovation programme in the UK is part-funded through the UK Government's Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) Programme. Through the HyFlyer project, ZeroAvia is working with key partners the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) and Intelligent Energy to decarbonise medium-range small passenger aircraft by demonstrating powertrain technology to replace conventional engines in propeller aircraft. Intelligent Energy will optimise its high power fuel cell technology for application in aviation whilst EMEC, producers of green hydrogen from renewable energy, will supply the hydrogen required for flight tests and develop a mobile refuelling platform compatible with the plane.

Recently, ZeroAvia was also invited by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to join the UK's JetZero Council and help lead the UK towards the ambitious goal of achieving the first ever zero emission long haul passenger flight.

Gary Elliott, CEO of the Aerospace Technology Institute, said: "This is an important milestone for HyFlyer and UK aerospace, and we send our congratulations to the team. It is through supporting projects such as HyFlyer, and new and innovative companies such as ZeroAvia, that the ATI aims to deliver our vision for future sustainable aviation and secure a lead for UK aerospace in the highly-competitive global market."

In addition to all the aircraft work, ZeroAvia and EMEC have developed the Hydrogen Airport Refuelling Ecosystem (HARE) at Cranfield Airport - a microcosm of what the hydrogen airport ecosystem will look like in terms of green hydrogen production, storage, refuelling and fuel cell powered-flight. This also marks another world's first - a fully operational hydrogen production and refueling airport facility for primary commercial aircraft propulsion. 

The successful flight represents good news for the aviation industry's role in supporting the net zero transition, but also raises hopes for innovation that can reduce commercial challenges in the medium term, particularly important for the industry as it considers the post pandemic recovery. ZeroAvia's hydrogen-electric powertrain is projected to have lower operating costs than its jet-fuelled competition due to lower fuel and maintenance costs. The company plans to control hydrogen fuel production and supply for its powertrains, and other commercial customers, substantially reducing the fuel availability and pricing risks for the entire market. 

About ZeroAvia:
ZeroAvia is a leader in zero-emission aviation, focused on hydrogen-electric aviation solutions to address a variety of markets, initially targeting 500 mile range in 10-20 seat aircraft used for commercial passenger transport, package delivery, agriculture, and more. Based in London and California, ZeroAvia has already secured experimental certificates for its two prototype aircraft, passed significant flight test milestones, and is on track for commercial operations in 2023. The company's expanding UK operations are partially supported by the grant from UK's Aerospace Technology Institute and Innovate UK, and ZeroAvia is part of the UK Government's Jet Zero Council. For more, please visit ZeroAvia.com, follow @ZeroAvia on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

About HyFlyer:
The HyFlyer project aims to decarbonise medium range small passenger aircraft by demonstrating powertrain technology to replace conventional piston engines in propeller aircraft. 

HyFlyer will demonstrate a phased approach from battery power to hydrogen power, integrating the new technology aboard a Piper M-class aircraft,  which will perform initial test flights out of Cranfield and culminate in a 250 – 300 nautical mile (NM) demonstration flight out of an airfield in Orkney.

The project is led by ZeroAvia with project partners the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) and Intelligent Energy.  

The HyFlyer project is supported by the ATI Programme, a joint Government and industry investment to maintain and grow the UK's competitive position in civil aerospace design and manufacture. The programme, delivered through a partnership between the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI), Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and Innovate UK, addresses technology, capability and supply chain challenges.

 

 

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Airbus' sketches of hydrogen-fuelled aircraft were unveiled this wee, and Leeham has written them up with thoughts on how this will proceed.

 

https://leehamnews.com/2020/09/25/bjorns-corner-the-challenges-of-hydrogen-part-10-airbus-hydrogen-zeroe-concepts/

 

Click on the link to see the images

 

Bjorn’s Corner: The challenges of Hydrogen. Part 10. Airbus’ Hydrogen ZEROe concepts

September 25, 2020, ©. Leeham News: In our series on Hydrogen as an energy store for airliners, we look at the three hydrogen-based concept aircraft Airbus presented this week.

They are called ZEROe and are concepts and not products, but their design tells us a lot about where Airbus is with its studies and how the hydrogen demonstrator aircraft might look like come 2026-2028.

How to understand Airbus’ Hydrogen concepts

Are the pictures of Airbus’ hydrogen-based ZEROe aircraft from Monday’s presentation also a hint of how future products will look like? Airbus EVP development Jean-Brice Dumont pointed out that concepts are not products.

The concepts are created to give Airbus and suppliers concrete example aircraft to work around when they look at configurations, aerodynamics, system solutions, and needed avionics to build efficient hydrogen-fueled airliners.

If we discard the Blended Wing-Body (BWB) variant, which I judge is there to spawn ideas and excitement more than show a realistic concept for the next move, the concepts still say a lot about what might come. Let’s look at what we can conclude from the Airbus presentation.

Hints for the 2027 demonstrator and 2035 first product

A demonstrator aircraft is scheduled for 2026-2028, but the program has a main supporter in the French government and the Paris Air Show is 2027. So let’s use June 2027 as the likely presentation date for a hydrogen-fueled demonstrator.

Will this be singular or plural? Airbus owns 50% of ATR and the turboprop concept looks very much like a more exciting ATR72, Figure 1.

At the same token, the Turbofan concept has several similarities with the Airbus A220, Figure 2. It would not be difficult to put the chain saw in the rear fuselages of former prototypes of an A220 and an ATR72, install the hydrogen tanks in modified rear tail cones as shown, and put the aircraft together again, now a bit shorter in the back (we come to why)

As we have seen, the challenge with hydrogen aircraft is the hydrogen tanks. The change of the rest of the fuel system components and the conversion of the Jet fuel-based engines to hydrogen is less of a challenge.

Airbus confirmed that all three concepts are hydrogen fueled gas turbine aircraft (also the BWB, I wasn’t sure directly after the presentation). It has come to the same conclusion as I, the step to a fuel cell-based hybrid with electric propulsion is risking a lot with no gains at the moment.

At the announcement Grazia Vittadini, the Airbus CTO said the gas turbine-based engines will have electric motors built-in. This is the electric starter generators I talked about in this Corner.

By moving the air starter and generators from the engine auxiliary gearbox to one of the shafts of the core, the acceleration of the engine can be faster and the core can be optimized with smaller margins to compressor stall. This leads to a more efficient engine compared with today’s engines with air starters and generators on the auxiliary gearbox.

I could talk to Vittadini in connection with the presentation and she confirmed that changing the APU to a hydrogen fuel cell that produces electrical energy is attractive, now that the main fuel is LH2. There was no confirmation or denying that this would find its way to the demonstrators or ultimately a product. We just have to wait and see.

Converting the APU of an A220 based demonstrator to hydrogen is straight forward, should the APU remain to reduce the risk budget. The ATR72 doesn’t have an APU so no problem there (but a hydrogen variant might, the concept turboprop has an APU).

How much do the concepts say about a 2035 Airbus product?

Probably a few things:

• It will have hydrogen-fueled gas turbine Turbofan propulsion.
• The likely seating will be at the heart of the single-aisle market. I would guess around 180 seats.
• The general configuration of the aircraft will likely be like the Turbofan concept, with the tank in the rear of the aircraft. The heavy LH2 tank placed in the tail cone behind the cabin will move the wing back to balance the aircraft.
• The wing can be made more slender as there is no volume requirement on the wing’s wingbox to house fuel. Many would say thinner but the profile of the wing and by it the thickness is dictated by super-critical transonic considerations and wing thickness is important for low wing weight. The wing cord (the width) will be shorter however to gain a high aspect ratio when paired with a large span. Folding wingtips might be used to get into the 36m gates of narrowbodies.
• There will be Fly-By-Wire and aerodynamic adaptations to cater to the change in the Center of Gravity (CG) for the aircraft when the 1.5t hydrogen sitting behind the CG gets consumed during a typical 800nm to 1,000nm sector. We can view the large swept-back winglets as such an adaptation. We will probably see more innovations to cater to this CG shift.
• These concepts have a hydrogen-based APU. Will the 2035 product? This will depend on the developments for the fuel cells. Will these be small, light, and reliable enough by 2035 to take over this role?
• Materials for the LH2 tank and all fuel related components will be intensively researched and tested. A major task for the demonstrators will be to test materials under realistic operational conditions over a longer time.
• Major aspects that are not shown in the concept pictures are the ground handling and airport infrastructure needed for hydrogen airliners. Once again, an important task for a demonstrator aircraft to test out.

As can be seen, we can deduce a number of hints from these concepts. We shall just avoid thinking these concepts define a 2035 product. Dumont said, one of the reasons is the market for a hydrogen airliner is not clear.

The demonstrator will be vital for airlines to understand all the aspects of operating a hydrogen airliner compared with today’s carbon-based types. When this becomes clearer, including the cost picture of hydrogen contra carbon-based airliners and state subsidies/taxes, products can be defined.

Will there be a hydrogen turboprop demonstrator and then a product from ATR? Probably. The French €15bn program announced in June contained program components for the regional industry, and in France this means ATR. We can expect a Turboprop demonstrator, based on a converted ATR72 and this can be followed by a product should the market reaction be positive.

[boestar]

Hydrogen "powered" flight worked out great for the Hindenburg