Jesse James
Ready or not, the future is upon us. The good folks over at Airbus are back in the news, teasing plans of their ideas for the future of flight. The company recently revealed plans to venture into an alternative fuel source for their planes. The ZEROe program features three planes that will use hybrid turbofan engines that use liquid hydrogen at its fuel source.
The European aerospace corporation posed the three new concepts to reduce the carbon footprint in air travel. The turbofan engines will be paired with an electronic propulsion system, generating electricity that runs alongside the gas turbine.
The first design is a Blended-Wing Body aircraft (BWB), which can carry 100-200 passengers up to 1,000 miles. The second is an Airbus short-haul Turboprop concept capable of carrying up to 100 passengers up to 1,000 miles. The third and final concept features a Turbofan with an extended wingspan. This aircraft can take 100-200 passengers up to 2,000 miles.
Airbus commented that hydrogen “holds exceptional promise as a clean aviation fuel and is likely to be a solution for aerospace and many other industries to meet their climate-neutral targets.” Word is that we expect a working example as early as 2035.
Check out the concepts in the images and head over to Airbus to find out more immediately. In the meantime, keep it locked with The Culture Curators for more travel news coming very soon.
Photos via Airbus
