GE Aerospace has achieved something no one else in aviation has yet by keeping a hybrid-electric plane flying above 30,000 feet, the same altitude at which commercial planes fly.
The company announced the milestone on Monday (July 20) at the Farnborough International Airshow in England, working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Boeing and BETA Technologies to achieve this.
The test plane, 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 straight, including one leg of its transatlantic flight to the air show.
Running a plane partially on electric power at this altitude has been one of aviation’s most difficult problems to solve. Conventional hybrid or electric cars have been around for years now, but doing the same thing thousands of feet in the air, where the air is thin and the stakes are much higher, is an entirely different challenge.
GE Chairman and CEO H. Lawrence Culp Jr. was quick to point out the importance of the case to the company, calling it an entry into the history books.
The aircraft’s integrated system includes GE-built motor generators, power converters, controllers, gearboxes from its Avio Aero unit and propellers from Dowty, on top of a CT7 engine doing the traditional work. BAE Systems supplied the batteries and the pod 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 successfully completed 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 key to making the technology practical on commercial aircraft in the long term.
The main goal behind all this is fuel economy. GE is incorporating lessons learned from these tests into its CFM International RISE engine program, which the company says aims for 20 percent greater fuel efficiency than 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, as well as a static display for anyone who wants to get a closer look at it on the ground.
