Hybrid electric aircraft can be the solution to enable CO2 neutral regional aircraft by 2035-2040, in line with the strategic goal of the European Commission [Fly the Green Deal, Europe’s Vision for Sustainable Aviation]. However, a lot is to be done on technological and integration level to achieve a viable hybrid electric aircraft design. FUTure PRopulsion INTegration or FutPrInt50 provides the ground work in identifying viable technologies, for which calculation and analysis methods will be created to evaluate the impact of hybrid electric propulsion systems into a clean sheet aircraft design. The knowledge and technology potential shall be summarized into a roadmap for hybrid electric regional aircraft with an Entry Into Service in 2035-2040.

The challenge

FutPrInt50 is to pave the road to allow a hybrid electric regional aircraft to be developed. The challenge was to develop a synergetic aircraft design for a commercial regional hybrid electric aircraft up to 50 seats for entry into service by 2035-2040, to identify key enabling technologies and a roadmap for regulatory aspects. The clean sheet aircraft design shall help accelerate and integrate hybrid electric aircraft and technologies to achieve a sustainable competitive aviation growth, as well as acting as a disruptor to regulators, ATM and energy suppliers.

The solution

The FutPrInt50 project performed an extensive analysis on current state-of-the-art and near future technologies to enable hybrid electric aircraft. The insights were consolidated into a toolset to enable the design and analysis of hybrid electric aircraft. The toolset is embedded within the Stanford developed SUAVE program code. All source code is open source and can be found on www.futprint50.eu. The toolset was validated by creating an open reference aircraft (conventional state-of-the-art EIS 2035) and multiple proposed hybrid electric aircraft designs.

Alongside a roadmap was created to map the path towards the Entry In Service of a hybrid electric aircraft in 2035-2040. The technology gaps were identified and visualized within a model based environment. The model based approach allows to create cross-sectional views from the database.

What did we do?

ADSE contributed to the design and design methodology effort as well as the roadmap creation. ADSE contributed to the overall program effort by providing support on the topics of:

• Top level Aircraft requirement definition
• Aircraft design methodology
• Roadmap model based framework
• Technology gap analysis
• Regulatory framework

Project partners:

Embraer (PT-BR), Cranfield university (UK), CEA (FR), Delft university of Technology (NL), EASN (GR), University Niccolo Cusano (IT) and University of Stuttgart (DE)

Reference:

• See www.futprint.eu for more information.
• Fly the Green Deal, Europe’s Vision for Sustainable Aviation, Report of the Advisory Council for Aviation Research and Innovation in Europe (ACARE) by European Commission; Brussels; June 2022.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 875551