I honestly don’t think you’re going to move the aviation industry from hydrocarbons.
Unless there is some MASSIVE breakthrough in battery technology in terms of power density, you’re not going to see battery electric aircraft. There are a few hilariously pathetic ones in development or small volume sale, I saw James May fly one, it had an endurance of less than an hour. Maybe you’ll get a BEA to match the performance of a Skyhawk and those will be suitable for personal aircraft or primary trainers. Maybe.
In the transport category? Not a chance. Aircraft much larger than a Beech C90 and maybe even then, the max takeoff weight is greater than the max landing weight. For shorter hops, they load less fuel, for longer hops they assume the plane will burn enough fuel to be below max landing weight on arrival. Batteries don’t get lighter as they are discharged.
Another thing: liquid fuel is extremely convenient for airplanes, because the fuel tanks are just…the inside volume of the wings. They seal the internal volume of the structure and there you go, fuel tank. Who cares exactly what shape it is, liquid conforms to the shape of its container. Gaseous fuels require pressure tanks, which are going to add significant empty weight, and offer less internal volume. And we’re just not going to deal with cryogenic fuels in civilian aviation; they only put up with that shit in rocketry because they outright have to.
Not for main propulsion of aircraft; to do the work of a jet airliner, you’d need electric motors driving ducted fans and fuel cells plus transmission cables and such capable of handling 5 to 10 megawatts. You’d also need to figure out a source of hot high pressure air for deicing systems and cabin pressure as that’s usually taken from the compressors of the main engines. You’ll see hydrogen burning turbofans before you see fuel cell powered airliners. I could see a fuel cell replace a turbine APU if you did build a hydrogen powered jet though.
And exactly how do you conclude that? That quad propeller Airbus design is at least 100 passengers, and Airbus say you can also burn Hydrogen directly in jet engines.
I honestly don’t think you’re going to move the aviation industry from hydrocarbons.
Unless there is some MASSIVE breakthrough in battery technology in terms of power density, you’re not going to see battery electric aircraft. There are a few hilariously pathetic ones in development or small volume sale, I saw James May fly one, it had an endurance of less than an hour. Maybe you’ll get a BEA to match the performance of a Skyhawk and those will be suitable for personal aircraft or primary trainers. Maybe.
In the transport category? Not a chance. Aircraft much larger than a Beech C90 and maybe even then, the max takeoff weight is greater than the max landing weight. For shorter hops, they load less fuel, for longer hops they assume the plane will burn enough fuel to be below max landing weight on arrival. Batteries don’t get lighter as they are discharged.
Another thing: liquid fuel is extremely convenient for airplanes, because the fuel tanks are just…the inside volume of the wings. They seal the internal volume of the structure and there you go, fuel tank. Who cares exactly what shape it is, liquid conforms to the shape of its container. Gaseous fuels require pressure tanks, which are going to add significant empty weight, and offer less internal volume. And we’re just not going to deal with cryogenic fuels in civilian aviation; they only put up with that shit in rocketry because they outright have to.
So…airliners are going to run on kerosene.
I clearly wrote hydrogen Fuel cells.
Not for main propulsion of aircraft; to do the work of a jet airliner, you’d need electric motors driving ducted fans and fuel cells plus transmission cables and such capable of handling 5 to 10 megawatts. You’d also need to figure out a source of hot high pressure air for deicing systems and cabin pressure as that’s usually taken from the compressors of the main engines. You’ll see hydrogen burning turbofans before you see fuel cell powered airliners. I could see a fuel cell replace a turbine APU if you did build a hydrogen powered jet though.
Fuel cell planes:
https://www.airbus.com/en/innovation/energy-transition/hydrogen/zeroe-our-hydrogen-powered-aircraft
https://zeroavia.com/
The ZeroAvia is an actually working plane:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZeroAvia
So they’ve existed for years now, and the concept is proven.
Those are small, short range aircraft, the technology does not scale.
And exactly how do you conclude that? That quad propeller Airbus design is at least 100 passengers, and Airbus say you can also burn Hydrogen directly in jet engines.