A Different Kind of Hybrid

Dean Sigler Diesel Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

In the Innovation Pavilion at Oshkosh’s AirVenture 2013, Joseph Hutterer quietly drew people in with a model and an interesting approach to a single-fuel type of hybrid.  Take the twin engines off the wings and place one of them in the modified tail.  Now put a small turbojet in a retracting pod in the nose.  Taxi out to the end of the runway and use both engines to take off and climb, then shut the nose jet down, retract that, and cruise on the single rear engine. Hutterer, with an Aeronautical Engineering degree from the University of Minnesota, FAA commercial pilot’s license with single-engine, multi-engine, instrument and glider ratings, and 42 years of engineering and marketing experience in the general aviation industry, has the credentials and the patents to make his approach credible. Consider that aircraft such as the Solar Impulse cruise on only about 10-percent of what they need for takeoff and climb.  A typical business twin doesn’t have …