Firms Team Up On Hybrid Electric Plane Technology (bbc.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Airbus, Rolls-Royce and Siemens are to develop hybrid electric engine plane technology as part of a push towards cleaner aviation. The E-Fan X programme will first put an electric engine with three jet engines on a BAe 146 aircraft. The firms want to fly a demonstrator version of the plane by 2020, with a commercial application by 2030. Firms are racing to develop electric engines for planes after pressure from the EU to cut aviation pollution. Each of the partners in the programme will be investing tens of millions of pounds, they said on a press call. The firms are developing hybrid technology because fully electric commercial flights are currently out of reach, a spokeswoman said.

Comments

Re:Diminishing returns

[MightyYar]

so it seems odd they need cooling equipment.

You still need a way to transfer the heat from where it is generated to the nice, cold heat sink. As a simple thought experiment, a motor operating in a thermos isn't really going to care much about the outside temperature - you need a way to get the heat from the motor to the air outside the thermos. Obviously you won't purposely insulate the aircraft motor, but the principle is the same.

Think about the amount of power dissipated... a 2 MW motor - even if 99% efficient - is going to dissipate 20 kW of heat. Think about the heatsink for your ~100W CPU and scale it up by 200x. Not an impossible task but definitely an engineering challenge.

Lighter than air craft won't work

[sjbe]

More use of lighter than air craft. Blimps, zeppelins, etc.

We tried that. It didn't end well. It's a romantic idea but not a practical one for mass transportation. They have some niche uses but they aren't the answer you are looking for.