The British company Electric Aviation Group has decided that its promising environmentally friendly regional aircraft will be hydrogen. According to the original design, it was supposed to be a hybrid. As Flightglobal writes, changes in the aircraft’s architecture have affected the schedule of its development. The 90-seat airliner is scheduled to begin operation in 2030.
Hydrogen planes have a more complex propulsion system than all-electric planes. They are powered by electric motors that are powered by a fuel cell, combining hydrogen with oxygen on the fly. During this, only water is released, so they are considered environmentally neutral. The problem is that hydrogen planes need a lot of liquid fuel to fly long distances. Putting containers of it inside the fuselage reduces the number of seats. And if the liquid hydrogen tank is placed on the external sling, it increases the maximum takeoff weight and drag of the aircraft.
Electric Aviation Group last year unveiled a design for a 70-seat hybrid aircraft. It is a high-plane with an elongated wing and two keels located on the ends of the horizontal tail fins. The plane was to have four electric motors, two of which had large-diameter propellers. At the same time its design was supposed to be convertible into all-electric variant – in case accumulators with greater specific capacity will be invented in future.
Having studied alternative solutions for the propulsion system of the advanced aircraft, Electric Aviation Group made a choice in favor of a hydrogen fuel cell propulsion system. Now it is going to create the H2ERA hydrogen airliner, designed for 90-100 passengers. The aircraft will fly at a cruising speed of 666 kilometers per hour, and its minimum range will be 2.2 thousand kilometers.
The company has not made a final decision on the H2ERA configuration. It is still exploring how many power units the plane should have and where they should be better placed. Nevertheless, Kamran Iqbal, founder of Electric Aviation Group, says that the appearance of the airliner is unlikely to change much. What power the prospective hydrogen plane will need, the company does not disclose. The Dash 8-400, which is comparable in size, is equipped with two PW150A turboprop engines. Each has a power output of 3,620 kilowatts.
Changes in the aircraft’s architecture have led to a shift in the schedule for its development. It is now scheduled to begin operation in 2030 instead of 2028. The technology demonstrator is scheduled to take off for the first time in 2026.
Several companies are developing hydrogen-powered passenger planes today. For example, German H2Fly and Deutsche Aircraft are planning to create a 40-seat hydrogen airliner and British-American ZeroAvia – 50-seat.