Airbus and Rolls-Royce hit eject on hybrid-electric airliner testbed after E-Fan X project fails to get off the ground

Airbus and Rolls-Royce have ended a joint venture to produce a hybrid-electric airliner testbed that could have paved the way for electric aircraft of the future. Airbus CTO Grazia Vittadini said in a statement late last week that "we need to re-focus all of our efforts on technology 'bricks' that will take us" to a low-CO2- …

[werdsmith]

Re: Electric planes?

If a plane is going to chuck a lot of gas out the back, enough gas to third law forward fast enough to get it into the sky, then it’s going to make a racket regardless of how you rotate the fans.

[cb7]

Re: Electric planes?

As well as reduced noise (hopefully), if the electrics are used only during take off and landing, you also gain the benefit of lower emissions in densely populated areas.

That gets rid of two of the main objections to airport expansion in densely populated areas. And most of the world's airports are in urban neighbourhoods.

And even if its a small reduction in emissions overall, it's a good stop gap measure until we can go fully electric.

[Fenton]

Re: Electric planes?

Weight problem aside you can increase efficiency quite a bit by having a central engine charging a small amount of batteries which power electric motors. The problem with gas turbines is they are very efficient at constant load (e.g. cruise), but quite fuel hungry at full boost (take off/Landing) also they don't respond. that quickly to changes in speed.

Whereas an electric motor responds very quickly to speed changes and if you have enough battery power (generated during cruise or charged on the ground) for the high thrust parts of the flight envelope you can increase efficiency quite a bit.

Needs a new generation of solid state batteries to work properly in an aircraft setting mind.

[MJI]

Re: Electric planes?

Use say super capacitors for a power boost for take off.

I do like the BAe146s and I blame getting rid of them for the downfall of Jersey European -> British Eurppean -> whatever they were called when went under.

They are a little hot rod of an airliner.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Electric planes?

I saw some of their flight testing, it is a lovely plane.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Electric planes?

If you have passengers that can breathe engine exhaust

[EBG]

why ?

Because decarbonisation. Thinking ends there.

Seriously. These things are pure PR. The total project costs are small compared with total corporate profits. No major corporate can not be seen to be behind governments' policies on climate change, irrespective of the hassle from the eco-activists. We must do something.

[Klimt's Beast Would]

Project shafted.

Can you dig it?

[amanfromMars 1]

Starting Off with a Novel Instant Economy ... Vorsprung durch AI Technik does IT Proud and Loud :-)

Do Rolls Royce do Cyber? For the Exercising and Exporting of Virtual Excellence with Future Provenance in Novel Powerful Mediated Currents Delivering Presents for Live Production Facilities and Utilities to Realise ....... and share of course quite widely to ensure that the information and intelligence is disenabled to be misplaced or foolishly misspent and abused/misused.

Can you imagine the Titanic Teutonic Precision such an AI Provision would Supply to BIOS [Basic Input/Output Systems] in CHAOS [Clouds Hosting Advanced Operating Systems]

Methinks exemplary is just and suitably understating.

And that question can equally well be seriously asked of Rolls Royce Motor Cars and BMW ..... for you surely cannot believe an Advanced Automobile Industry is not into Engineering Future Loads with Virtual Vehicles to take you practically immediately to wherever you need or have paid to go to.

And as Surprisingly Sophisticated Virtual AIMachinery, Always Something of a Pleasant Mystery to Enjoy and Employ rather than Export and Exploit, which is quite totally different and for others in that very particular and peculiar frame of mind.

[jake]

Re: Starting Off with a Novel Instant Economy ... ::snippage to fit the Re: size restriction[0]::

"BIOS [Basic Input/Output Systems] in CHAOS [Clouds Hosting Advanced Operating Systems]"

Just to translate for anyone who doesn't speak Martian, that's SNA (Systems Network Architecture). IBM has made a whole pile of loot from it over the years. However, it's mostly depreciated now, and the world has moved on ... with the exception of Marketards selling the Sheeple on an obese, pale, overly complex, ugly johnny-come-lately variation on the theme, which for some reason seems to be much loved by Our Favorite Martian.

Perhaps Mars is stuck in the mid-late '70s?

{0} Hey, amfM ... that the TitleSubject up there, not the body of the text!

[Boothy]

Standard engines + fuel vs fuel + gas turbine + electric?

I'd be curious to know what differences there would be between things like weight and fuel consumption, between using standard engines burning 'jet' fuel directly, and a gas turbine (or two, one under each wing?) burning (perhaps cheaper) fuel, to generate electricity + electric motors?

Add a few batteries and/or super caps to the mix, to boost take off power/store excess energy, so you could have a smaller turbine (although the added battery weight might off-set any savings in using a smaller lighter turbines anyway?).

If using batteries (or some other suitable storage method?) you could use stored power for take off and landings (quieter and cleaner for the locals), and then only use the gas turbine/s once at altitude.

Might not be as efficient as a traditional jet due to extra weight etc, which also means it likely wouldn't have the range, but I could see this being useful for short haul flights, especially into city airports, or environmental hot-spots.

Or perhaps just not viable at all?

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Standard engines + fuel vs fuel + gas turbine + electric?

Unfortunately you need the other way around. Big noisy jet engines on maximum power (and afterburner ;-) on take off and minimum engines at cruise altitude.

[Boothy]

Re: Standard engines + fuel vs fuel + gas turbine + electric?

Quote: "Unfortunately you need the other way around. Big noisy jet engines on maximum power (and afterburner ;-) on take off and minimum engines at cruise altitude."

Not sure I understand? Or perhaps you've misunderstood me?

We already know electric aircraft can take off, even with heavy batteries, as these aircraft already exist, (many still early prototype, but there are flying examples already) so the 'Big noisy jet engines on maximum power...' isn't really relevant.

I'm comparing standard existing aircraft, i.e. The 'Standard engines + fuel' bit. i.e. a normal current commercial aircraft.

against an electric only aircraft, but using a gas turbine to generate the power rather than a battery, i.e. 'fuel + gas turbine + electric'.

Also worth mentioning, this would almost certainly be competing against short to medium haul turbo-prop aircraft, rather than jet aircraft, at least till the tech matured a lot.

The main issue with existing electric aircraft is their lack of range, (heavy batteries + not much actual stored energy as compared with liquid fuel). Plus having to then wait to recharge the batteries after a flight.

Burning fuel* to produce the electricity removes, or at least reduces the need for batteries (might still be useful for take off and landing to keep noise down, and/or give a boost to available power), and you've still got the high potential energy stored in the fuel that drives the turbine, more range needed, just add more fuel.

* Obviously this also need the fuel to be 'clean', i.e. made from crops or something. But that should be easier to do for turbine fuel, than for jet fuel (turbines can be run from almost any fuel, so you'd pick something suitable for the use case in hand).

My question, is basically is this feasible, from a physics/engineering standpoint? i.e. Would having fuel + turbine + generator + electric engine, still be too heavy to be efficient?

Even if this wasn't as efficient as a turbo-prop (or jet), it might still be viable if it wasn't too far off, simply to help keep local noise and emissions in check, as rules around these things are almost certainly going to get stricter over time.

PS: I didn't down vote you.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Standard engines + fuel vs fuel + gas turbine + electric?

Sorry was reading an earlier post where they said we could use the little electric engine on the ground to be quiet and only switch to the massive powerful jet in cruise

[Anonymous Coward]

Ideal, a keg-sized 2.5MW generator

for a Rolls-Royce compact nuclear power unit scheduled for a street corner near you soon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Electric planes do not need batteries - Ammonia may be better

Ammonia in a fuel cell is efficient and no doubt with extra engineering even more.

It has zero pollution if made from renewables. This will soon be cost competitive too in places like Australia.

Ammonia has similar bang per buck as current jet fuel but unfortunately requires double the volume. This disadvantage is offset by the greater efficiency.

It is a well known liquid and while needing careful handling so does jet fuel.

Elelctric planes are quieter, less complex (cheaper, more reliable, easier to maintain) and more powerful meaning runways can handle considerably more takeoffs at higher angles minimising disturbance.

My main irritation with current electric engines is they lack elegance. Having 8 or so propellers just does not seem the future.

[jake]

Re: Electric planes do not need batteries - Ammonia may be better

"It is a well known liquid and while needing careful handling so does jet fuel."

Only problem is that spilling 100 gallons of jet fuel would annoy the greenaholics ... but spilling 100 gallons of ammonia could conceivably kill many of them and permanently damage many more for life.

[Intractable Potsherd]

Re: Electric planes do not need batteries - Ammonia may be better

But, a bit like bears, an annoyed greenaholic is much more dangerous than a dead one... - - - >

[Anonymous Coward]

Lithium has issues too.

The key thing is that Airports have stringent safety handling than the farmers who currently may handle ammonia.

Would not want joe public filling up their cars with Ammonia at self service stations.

[jake]

Re: Lithium has issues too.

As a farmer and pilot, I can assure you the safety standards for handling ammonia here at the Ranch are a hell of a lot more stringent than handling fuel at any given airport.

[Cliff Thorburn]

What's not to like for a real long time?

If I had a promissory note for every time i’ve heard that, I wouldn’t need to utilise prime prior art in pirate prime intellectual property to hit the launch button on hyper neuklear intellectual alien intellectual property tied and defied in Live Operational Virtual Environments, part V ....

More sagas than Star Wars, more great gaming than Sega’s, more frustrating than frustration, more costly than pandemics, and more secretive than the da vinci code :0)

[jake]

C'mon, dude, the da vinci code ain't a secret. People have been selling works of fiction for thousands of years because (here's the secret!) People, as a whole, are credulous idiots.

Please, do no harm with this knowledge Grasshopper.

[Updraft102]

"Although the BAe-146 can fly on three of its four conventional jet engines, Cranfield's runway isn't long enough to do that safely."

How long would the runway have to be for it to fly on three engines?

I was not aware runways could fly on any number of engines.

[opalideas]

Plaintively waving

As a pilot, I have been following this development from the other side of the centre-of-the-universe: https://www.harbourair.com/harbour-air-and-magnix-announce-successful-flight-of-worlds-first-commercial-electric-airplane/

Sadly, covid-19 will likely set back the schedule somewhat.

[TrumpSlurp the Troll]

Extra drag?

I'm struggling a bit with the proposal for extra power on take off and landing.

How is that electrical power delivered?

Having an electric motor built into the shaft of the turbine might give increased fan speed at crucial moments, I suppose.

Otherwise you would seem to need extra propulsion units on the wing which would supply extra drag for the whole flight.

Just looking at hybrid cars as far as I know you don't have an electric engine to make the main engine spin faster, you deliver the extra power through wheel motors. So how does that map onto power delivery from wing mounted devices?