COVER STORY
COVER STORY
“ VERTICAL TAKE-OFF AIRCRAFT DEMAND A LOT OF POWER , AND THAT ' S BEEN ONE OF THE ISSUES THAT ' S LIMITED THEIR WIDER DEPLOYMENT ”
JIA XU CTO , HONEYWELL UAM AND UAS
“ You ' re probably going to need batteries to give you that high response time power , and then you ' re going to have a generator — be it a fuel cell system or a turbo generator or an internal combustion engine — to provide you with that sustaining element of power .”
When you consider all of the components Xu mentions , not only does it begin to sound expensive , but also very complex and heavy . It seems that solutions are enabling extended flight for hybrid-powered aircraft , but the inevitable truth is that they still burn fossil fuels — they don ’ t produce zero emissions .
This is the problem area that technicians are looking to resolve , because larger passenger aircraft are currently operating on a hybrid basis , but the goal is to get to zero emissions . So , how will they do that ?
By slowly increasing the capabilities of electric propulsion in commercial aircraft , and perhaps hydrogen will make its way into the mix as its widespread use is yet to be leveraged fully .
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