Airbus UpNext, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Airbus, has revealed a flight take a look at program to review the contrails produced by a hydrogen combustion engine as half the Firm’s ZEROe roadmap. The challenge, named “Blue Condor”, will launch two modified Arcus-J gliders, one geared up with a hydrogen combustion engine and one geared up with a standard kerosene-powered combustion engine, to check contrails emitted at excessive altitudes.
The Arcus-J glider is configured like every sailplane able to free flight due to its 20-meter wingspan, however with the added benefit of a retractable PBS TJ-100 jet engine to optimize the glider’s self-launching and lengthy cross-country capabilities.
The primary section of the Blue Condor challenge includes modifying one Arcus-J glider. Airbus engineers are changing the rear pilot seating with a hydrogen-propulsion system. Two 700-bar gaseous hydrogen tanks will present gasoline to the turbojet hydrogen combustion engine. The second Arcus-J glider will stay unmodified, working on its present turbojet engine.
Contrail characterization is of great curiosity to Airbus. We all know that hydrogen emits no carbon dioxide when burned, however we additionally know that with water vapor and warmth being essentially the most vital by-products, hydrogen combustion does produce contrails. Though these contrails differ considerably to these produced by typical JetA/A1 combustion engines, understanding their composition might be key to assist our decarbonization journey.
In taking on this problem we’re making vital headway in our decarbonization technique and our ambition to carry the world’s first zero-emission business plane into service by 2035.
—Sandra Bour Schaeffer, CEO of Airbus UpNext
Blue Condor demonstrator throughout first flight. Photograph: James Darcy
The Blue Condor demonstrator might be supported by the Perlan Undertaking group, which might be answerable for the modification of the Arcus gliders. They will even present the high-altitude glider pilots, the identical pilots who in 2018 set the world subsonic altitude document—76,124 toes—in a pressurized glider for Airbus Perlan Mission II.
The German Analysis Centre DLR will acquire and analyze knowledge captured utilizing their measurement instrumentation sensors on a chase plane, whereas Airbus will guarantee the supply of the hydrogen system and tools, together with the combustion engine in addition to the main points of the flight take a look at mission.
To make sure 100% comparable knowledge between the hydrogen and traditional engine, the take a look at flights might be carried out back-to-back below the identical meteorological circumstances. Check flights are scheduled for late 2022 in North Dakota in collaboration with the College of North Dakota.
Airbus can be conducting varied demonstration packages—together with ECLIF3 (Emission and Local weather Impression of Different Fuels) and VOLCAN (“VOL avec Carburants Alternatifs Nouveaux”)—to higher perceive contrails produced by sustainable aviation fuels.
Airbus Perlan Mission II can be persevering with, with plans in 2023 to soar to altitudes approaching the Perlan 2 glider’s 90,000-feet service ceiling, with the intention to conduct analysis of higher atmospheric climate. If profitable, Airbus Perlan Mission II would set the all-time world altitude document for wingborne flight, and would accomplish that in a zero-emission plane.
