LONDON — ZeroAvia recently completed the first hydrogen fuel cell powered flight of a commercial-grade aircraft.
The flight took place Sept. 23, 2020, at the company’s R&D facility in Cranfield, England, with the Piper M-class six-seat plane completing taxi, takeoff, a full pattern circuit, and landing.
According to ZeroAvia officials, the flight is the first step towards moving from fossil fuels to zero-emission hydrogen as the primary energy source for commercial aviation. Eventually, and without any new fundamental science required, hydrogen-powered aircraft will match the flight distances and payload of the current fossil fuel aircraft, they claim.
The milestone is part of the HyFlyer project, an R&D program supported by the UK Government. It follows the UK’s first ever commercial-scale battery-electric flight, conducted in the same aircraft in June 2020.
ZeroAvia will now turn its attention to the next and final stage of its six-seat development program — a 250-mile zero emission flight out of an airfield in Orkney, England, before the end of the year. The demonstration of this range is roughly equivalent to busy major routes such as Los Angeles to San Francisco or London to Edinburgh, company officials note.
Orkney is in Scotland not England, about as far from England as you can get in the British Isles, unless they fly from Shetland.
Just don’t fly to Lakehurst, NJ…
Lakehurst..? It can’t make it out of the traffic pattern.!
There are fuel cells that will operate on CNG, a much easier gas to liquefy .
Both result in H2O emissions, a much more potent GHG than CO2… so , what’s the point ?
As far as efficiency; the electrolysis of water is about 80% efficient, and the fuel cell is about 60% efficient in producing electricity from H2….so, the process is about 48% efficient.
Then, there is the efficiency of the process in producing the ‘first’ electricity used in the electrolysis of the water…? wind, solar or nat gas. ?
Hydrogen…really?
Sure, I’ll fly with a 5,000 psi ‘bomb’ on board,. not to mention a very hot fuel cell.
Even with a high pressure tank, I calculated that a tank the size of a 100 gallon gas tank will fuel this a/c for about 25 minutes…! Not close to get from LA to SF, which is over 400 sm.
They could always make the H2 tanks into long cylinders and hang the under the wings like the old JetStar’s wing mounted fuel tanks. At least that keeps the two bombs out of the cabin and lets them be placed at, or near, the CG. Maybe even make them jettisonable like military fuel tanks so you can get rid of them if an off airport landing is imminent. Not sure what to do with that hot fuel cell other then stick it in the nose with the electric motor so it has access to the best possible cooling air flow.
As for range they will never get there unless they go with LH2 but that brings about its own problems with storage, loading, etc..