GE Aerospace has accomplished something no one else in aviation has yet by keeping a hybrid-electric aircraft flying above 30,000 feet, the same altitude at which commercial airliners fly.
The company announced the milestone on Monday, July 20 at the Farnborough International Air Show in England, working together with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Boeing and BETA Technologies to achieve it.
The test aircraft, a modified Saab 340B, carried GE’s hybrid-electric propulsion system integrated into one of its engine nacelles. At one point during testing, the plane remained in hybrid-electric mode for more than two hours at a time, including a leg of its transatlantic flight to the air show.
Getting a plane to run partially on electric power at that altitude has been one of the most difficult problems for aviation to solve. Traditional hybrid or electric cars have been around for years, but doing the same thing thousands of feet in the air, where the air is thin and the stakes are much higher, is a completely different challenge.
GE Chairman and CEO H. Lawrence Culp Jr. didn’t hold back when mentioning how important this deal is for the company, calling it one for the history books.
The system included in the aircraft includes motor generators, power converters, controllers, gearboxes from its Avio Aero unit and propellers from Dowty, plus a CT7 engine doing the traditional work. BAE Systems supplied the batteries and the nacelle itself came from Aurora Flight Sciences, a subsidiary of Boeing.
This isn’t GE’s first attempt at hybrid-electric flight either. The company has been solving the problem for nearly a decade, starting with a basic ground test of an electric motor in 2016. In 2022, it achieved a megawatt-class hybrid-electric test at simulated altitudes of up to 45,000 feet. Last January, GE conducted a ground test of a narrow-body hybrid-electric motor that didn’t even need battery storage to operate, a design detail that engineers say is critical to making the technology practical on commercial aircraft in the future.
The biggest goal behind all this is fuel savings. GE is incorporating what it has learned from these tests into its CFM International RISE engine program, which the company says targets 20% greater fuel efficiency compared to current engines.
Visitors to the Farnborough airshow this week will also be able to see the technology in person. GE has scheduled public demonstration flights of the modified aircraft throughout the event, along with a static display for anyone who wants to get a closer look on the ground.
