Contrasting the capabilities of hybrid and battery-electric aircraft
Electrification will only make a sustainability impact for aviation if it can deliver useful mission capabilities that replace existing aircraft. VerdeGo has applied experimental data from its hybrid powerplants to model the performance of electrified aircraft with both hybrid and battery powertrains. The results of this work show a compelling case for hybridization being the propulsion architecture that will have the biggest impact on the most use cases as electrification becomes mainstream. While the automotive industry evolved from hybrids to battery power, aviation is moving in the other direction from batteries in R&D aircraft to hybrids in production use cases.