Hybrid-Electric Aicraft Engine Targeting 30% Fuel Efficiency

Someone

Not “30% fuel efficiency”, but an improvement of 30%. FTA: “The project aims to demonstrate up to 30% improved fuel efficiency for a typical 250-nautical-mile regional turboprop mission”

avidiax

I think there are startups making a similar sort of engine for general aviation. It's good to see that there is development of the same idea for commercial aviation. This isn't like a hybrid car. It's a parallel hybrid, where the gas engine is just big enough for efficient cruise at altitude, and the electric motor/generator provides extra power for takeoff and ascent (or go-around power), and then charges slowly during cruise if needed. This means that the battery is quite small and light, having only enough charge to take off and get to altitude. I suspect that this system probably improves safety as well, if architected properly. If one or both of the gas engines fail, so long as they are not seized, that electric motor can still provide some power for diversion.

soperj

Only AI stories show up now, so they had to call it an Ai craft I guess.

mschuster91

1300 HP electric engine power, now that's an achievement. I do wonder if prop engines can act as "windmills" (similar to turbine engines, which often in accidents still have been found to provide a bit of hydraulic power), which means regenerative braking could be used instead of speedbrakes.

MeteorMarc

Nothing on recharging the battery in the landing phase, so room for improvement.

krunck

I wonder if during descent instead of cutting power alot to control speed it can instead use the energy to charge the batteries.

ck2

anything that gets rid of leaded fuel on prop aircraft is a win even if 0% efficiency improvement

_diyar

This is very clever: instead of focusing on electric only flight, just make the existing engine fly in the most efficient window while the electric engine buffers the flight profile. Like a big-boy prius.

tgtweak

Rtx has an interesting patent [1] on this that highlights some of the novelties of this setup vs a traditional hybrid (planetary motor/generator like in a Prius): It's a boost-only motor, it doesn't/can't harvest energy on descent. The patented solution (transient smoothing under auto-throttle control) puts electric motors on both the low spool and high spool, then uses a power-splitting algorithm to route high-frequency thrust changes to the electric motors while keeping fuel flow nearly constant on the thermal engine (turbine). The turbine cruises at a steady operating point with tight compressor/turbine clearances and the electric motor smooths out the spikes that are normally there with turbulence and load changes. Benefits: lower fuel burn, longer turbine life (fewer blade-rub risks from speed variation), and smoother ride quality since the auto-throttle bandwidth improves. This setup (based on the various cutaways and photos so far) seems to be only a single 1MW motor so it only runs on the low spool but can still help modulate the turbine decently in the same way it does in the Koenigsegg Regera's hybrid electric setup, that removes the need for a flywheel because the electric motor can smooth out the gas motor's inherent lumpiness. Also disclosed in a previous press release [2], it's only a 200kWh battery so at 1MW peak boost (cited load during takeoff/ascent) it would only run for ~10-15 minutes at the beginning of the flight. Seems most of the savings are due in part to not using as much fuel during takeoff (~20% of a 1-hour flight's fuel) but also in large part to the under-sizing and optimization of the thermal turbine to keep it running in it's peak efficiency zone for more of the flight (~10% of a 1-hour flight's fuel). Curious how the safety margins work here - if the battery is depleted on takeoff (aborted takeoff) or there's an issue that requires descent-then-reascent, if the batteries can't be replenished in-flight there could be a power deficit in that window where you'd normally have 2+2MW of gas turbine power for the plane and now you only have 1+1mw of gas turbine power. [1] https://patents.google.com/patent/US20250296689A1/en [2] https://www.aerospacetestinginternational.com/news/h55-deliv...

whazor

This is why it makes sense to carbon price the private jets. On a smaller plane you can innovate much faster.

aunty_helen

Love a gearbox those guys over at P&W. Can't get enough gearboxes.

whatever1

Since they can put a huge battery onboard why don't they also electrify runway taxiing? I cringe every time a jet plane has to spool up, burning god knows how many gallons of fuel, just to go 15mph on the runway.