@Boeing and @Cambridge_Uni Hybrid Engine Airplane and How Sunfire GmbH Power can make airplane refueling unnecessary

Airplane lovers concerned about the use of Fossil Fuels by airplanes, I’ve got some great news for y’all!

A team of researchers from Boeing and Cambridge University have successfully tested an airplane with a Range Extender Technology as stated in the article “Forget hybrid cars, hybrid airplanes are the next big thing”, published January 20, 2015 9:25 PM PST by Michelle Starr, CNET News.

The Team tested their design at Sywell Aerodrome, near Northampton in the UK, testing the plane's ability to hop along the runway as well as takeoff and landing capabilities. They then followed up with a set of flights in a bid to test the plane's ceiling and endurance level.

This plane was designed effectively as a counter-point research to that done by Airbus in developing the Twin-Engine Airbus E-Fan All-Electric Airplane as described in my blog article entitled “Airbus Group and the E-Fan – EU's Flightpath 2050 heralds All-Electric Aircraft as Fischer–Tropsch Process makes Kerosene Renewable”.

The aim of their design was to address the ineffectiveness of using Li-Ion Batteries for powering Commercial aircraft, as they are basically too heavy.

Through experimentation, they have designed a Ranger Extender version of the engine use in the 2012 Chevy Volt All-Electric Vehicle and possibly the 2016 Chevy Bolt that uses a Gasoline Powered Generator to recharge it's Li-ion Batteries as explained in my blog article entitled “US$30,000 2016 Chevrolet Bolt - How GM plans to innovate All-Electric Vehicles to avoid Tesla and Nissan beating them”.

Thus, the airplane still flies on conventional fossil fuels such as Kerosene and Gasoline, but uses a lot less fuel, mainly during take-off stored electricity in the Li-Ion Polymer Batteries to keep plane's Propellers running in stable flight.

Design of the hybrid Airplane - How Airplanes can fly on a Motor, Generator and Li-Ion Batteries

Their engine is a 7 kW four-stroke piston Honda engine with a 10 kW Electric Motor coupled with an Electric Generator and a bank of 16 Li-Ion Polymer Batteries. The 7 kW four-stroke piston Honda engine is coupled via a one drive pulley to spin the propeller; in this configuration it  uses 30% less fuel than a petrol engine in an aeroplane of the same size, as shown below.

Overall the plane weighs just 140 kilograms (309 lb) sans the pilot or fuel and includes some 16 Li-Ion Polymer Batteries. It has a total weight including pilot and fuel of 450 kilograms (992 lb), as the 16 Li-Ion Polymer Batteries doesn’t add significantly to the weight of the aircraft.

It also has a ceiling of 460 metres (1,500 ft), which the team recorded during tests of their design.

The way the design works is that the plane initially takes off under the power of the gasoline Powered Engine that drives the Propeller. This also drives an Electric Generator which charges the 16 Li-Ion Polymer Batteries, making it the first airplane to do so in flight as noted in the article “Watts up - aeroplanes go hybrid-electric”, published December 23 2014, the University of Cambridge.   

  

Those 16 Li-Ion Polymer Batteries then powers an Electric Motor, which then switches the entire Hybrid Engine to a Motor Assist Mode, minimizing the Gasoline usage.

During stable flight, the 16 Li-Ion Polymer Batteries powering the Electric Motor can take over, with the Gasoline Powered Engine being shut off completely and the Electric Motor flying the plane totally on the power from the 16 Li-Ion Polymer Batteries.

However, the minute the power level in the 16 Li-Ion Polymer Batteries falls below a preset safety level, the Gasoline Powered Engine comes back on and the Electric Generator chips in, recharging the 16 Li-Ion Polymer Batteries in the process.

Hybrid Planes are the future - Sunfire GmbH Power to Liquid Technology to make refueling unnecessary

This switching back and forth between the Electric Motor powered by the 16 Li-Ion Polymer Batteries and the Gasoline Powered Engine that powers the Electric Generator occurs mostly during stable flights.

Otherwise, during take-off and climb, the heavy-lifting is done by the Gasoline Power Engine, which in turns acts as the Generator, charging the 16 Li-Ion Polymer Batteries.

Combined this ingenious idea with the ability to make the fuel onboard the aircraft using Sunfire GmbH, whose Power to Liquid Technology that uses the well-known Fischer–Tropsch Process to produce Kerosene Fuel from Water (H₂0_(l)) and Carbon Dioxide (CO_2(g)) as detailed in my blog article entitled “Sunfire GmbH Power to Liquid Technology produces Synthetic Diesel, Kerosene and Gasoline - SOEC Hydrogen Reduction SynGas for Fischer–Tropsch Process”, this plane can effectively be self-recharging and self-refueling, basically flying forever.

This concept developed by Boeing and Cambridge University can potentially be scaled up to larger commercial Turbo-prop Engines and eventually Jet Engine Commercial Aircraft. Soon, aircraft may no longer need to refueled at all; they can simply make their fuel during flight and use less fuel during flight overall thanks to the research of Boeing and the University of Cambridge.