Airbus and engine maker CFM International have signed a partnership agreement on a hydrogen demonstration program that could see commercial flights by 2035. CFM is a 50/50 joint company between GE and Safran Aircraft Engines. The team announced its intentions in an hour-long introduction on February 22, with members from the companies explaining the goals of the project. A view of what they intend to do with Airbus 380 serial number one gives a view inside the cavernous craft. As pointed out in a Green Car Congress article, the main objective is to develop and flight test a direct combustion engine fueled by liquid hydrogen. The Biggest Test Bed ZeroAvia seeks to get a 20-passenger liner in flight by 2024 and scale up to a 200-seat craft with 3,000 mile range by 2035. Jeff Engler’s Wright Electric is working on a BAe 146 with short-range aspirations for its 100-passenger, hydrogen fuel cell or aluminum cell-powered airplane by 2026. (We will …
Flying More Economical, Less Polluting Than Driving?
Ilan Kroo, in a 2014 Electric Aircraft Symposium presentation, showed that a “narrow-body” airliner (for example, the Boeing 737-800) is able to fly one passenger coast-to-coast on 29 gallons of fuel, at about 81 passenger miles per gallon. Driving responsibly, a carpool of four or five in a Prius could show greater operational economy, but take about 40 or more hours to make the trip (and lots of breaks) compared to the five hours in one jump it takes the Boeing. Worse, the same Prius is often stuck in gridlock traffic for short drives with only the driver on board. Even a hybrid’s mileage suffers under such circumstances. Several popular publications have taken up that “meme” in the last week. Nick Stockton, writing in Mother Jones’ environment section, informs his readers that airlines are already competitive with cars on a passenger mile basis, and that because “Fuel economy is hardwired into the airline industry’s DNA,” there could be benefits for …
Rising Oil Prices a “Wake-up Call”
With revolt and possible revolution threatening the shutdown of the Suez Canal and driving crude oil prices up, a recent article in Flight Global merits reflection. Flight Global’s lead sums up a threat and a hope in one tidy paragraph. “The International Energy Agency raised an alarming note as our power-hungry lives got back into gear after the holidays. ‘Oil prices are entering a dangerous zone for the global economy. The oil import bills are becoming a threat to the economic recovery. This is a wake-up call to the oil-consuming countries and to the oil producers,’ it said.” With fuel prices at the end of 2010 up one-fifth over those at the end of 2009, ticket prices necessarily follow, with the danger of lower passenger loads, fewer flights, and generally diminished convenience and economy for air travellers. Some carriers such as RyanAir, already notorious for suggesting pay toilets on their airliners, tactically hedge by buying an oil company’s future reserves …