Airplanes Of The Future

Airplanes are important for many reasons. We can see our family in other countries, workers can go on business trips, and more people can be employed to be pilots, airplane engineers and maintenance workers. But they emit a lot of CO2, airplanes. So how can we still help these people, but make air travel more sustainable?

Priority

In the past, the priorities for flight were safety, speed and weight. The industry wanted to create a light vehicle with a reliable source of energy like kerosene, a type of oil. Batteries are very heavy, and fuel can easily be held in the wings and be connected to the engines. But airplanes do use a lot of fuel, and emit a lot of the excess emissions too. Many engineering companies stick to the ‘classic’ airplane design.

Do you think electric & hydrogen-powered airplanes could replace the ones we see all the time?

Airbus’s Innovative Future

Recently, Airbus has conceived the idea of building an airplane in the future with the ability to emit zero harmful emissions, like carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide. The new aircraft will be called the Zero-E, and the special wing design means that people can sit in them! The engine is situated at the back of the plane, much like a spaceship. The plane will store 4 liquid hydrogen tanks.

Velis Electro

Pipistrel is a company based in Slovenia and founded by Ivo Boscarol. The company builds light aircraft. A few years ago, they claimed the record of first private aircraft fully powered by electricity. This is an excellent discovery, for it is now a hallmark for sustainable transport and vehicles. The Velis Electro is now in production, and can be purchased by flight schools, airports and pilots.

Boeing & Nasa’s Experiments

Nasa and Boeing are working together to find a way to make sustainable flight commercial, and the goal is to hit this target by 2030. The Sustainable Flight Demonstrator is going to build the plane then test it and see the results. The first test flight is set for 2028. While this may seem quite a while away, it takes time to engineer an airplane, and make it as light and safe as possible. The companies have said that if the results of this test run are successful, there may be demand for over 40,000 individual planes between the upcoming years of 2035 and 2050.

While airplanes are still powered by oil, companies have made fuel derived from biological substances and can power a plane just as much as normal fuel can.

The Cons of Sustainable Flight

While it may seem incredible, all of these discoveries make you wonder, why aren’t these planes up in the sky already? While electric planes give out no emissions at all, a battery to store the energy is heavy. It is relatively lighter to store kerosene in a plane instead. What about hydrogen though? While hydrogen is a little lighter, its pressure is high, ranging around 800 bars. Luckily, engineers and scientists are developing tough and durable tanks to store them in. 

Adaptability

These discoveries and theories prove how we as humans are adaptable. By combining science, mathematics and creativity, we can design things that we will take from the past, and innovate the future.