Airbus, Rolls-Royce, and Siemens are teaming up to move electric aircraft from the small and experimental to the large and practical. At the Royal Aeronautical Society in London, the three giant engineering concerns announced that they are pooling their resources to build the E-Fan X hybrid-electric technology demonstrator that is based on a BAE Systems 146 flying testbed and is slated to fly in 2020.
Hybrid electric aircraft are very attractive to both engineers and environmentalists. The EU is dedicated to reducing dependence on fossil fuels and the European Commission's Flightpath 2050 Vision for Aviation mandates reducing emissions of carbon dioxide by 75 percent, nitrogen oxides by 90 percent, and noise by 65 percent. According to Airbus, these goals are outside the reach of conventional aircraft designs, but not that of ones based on electric propulsion.
For the engineers, the use of a hybrid electric system means a lighter, less complex aircraft that's more suited to intelligent computer control and is cheaper and easier to repair and maintain. The trick is to find the best way to scale up the technology and adapt it for commercial use....
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