FUTURE PROPULSION
Building a green aerospace cluster in South Yorkshire Airlander 10’s new production home is set to be bolstered by the University of Sheffield AMRC’s R&D capabilities and through the recruitment of outstanding regional talent, writes Tom Grundy, Hybrid Air Vehicles CEO. If a single message stood out from the Farnborough International Airshow in July, it was that the climate crisis weighs heavily on every decision the aviation sector now makes. It is no longer possible to announce a new engine or a new aircraft or to propose growth in the sector without taking into account the growing proportion of climate impact the aviation sector represents. Launching the Jet Zero Strategy, the transport secretary said clearly that the sector’s emissions must never rise above their 2019 peak, even as it recovers and then returns to growth. Against this backdrop, Airbus has said that it will take at least a decade to deliver its first zeroemission hydrogen-powered aircraft into service, while we need at least 100 times more sustainable aviation fuel to be supplied on the market to use it for ten per cent of aviation’s needs by 2030. For our sector then, decarbonisation is a dealbreaker, and its future is under question. The potential for disruption is enormous. That being said, with disruption comes opportunity throughout the entire aerospace supply chain – and we need to take it as such. With our partnership with the University
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of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), part of the High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult, our collective ambition is to ensure South Yorkshire is the first mover, by building the first large-scale commercial low-carbon aircraft there. Extraordinary challenges require extraordinary solutions, and while I may be biased, that is what we have developed with Airlander, the first hybrid aircraft in the world. Traditionally, aircraft have been designed around the availability of relatively cheap, energy dense fossil fuels, and are only efficient to operate when they are moving quickly. Instead, we designed an aircraft from its
first principles that prioritises efficiency. Bringing together the buoyant lift of a helium-filled hull with an aerodynamic shape and vectored thrust to provide lift and propulsion. Having prototyped and flown the aircraft, we have defined our production specification and our mission is now to deliver it into commercial service in 2026. It is an important mission. This is an aircraft that will reduce emissions in like-for-like roles by up to 90 per cent. It is ideally suited to regional aviation. It can deliver new solutions in sectors like logistics where capacity constraints, infrastructure costs and the operating economics of aircraft present significant
“This is an aircraft that will reduce emissions in like-for-like roles by up to 90 per cent.”