Airlander 10 set for electric propulsion

Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), the developer of the Airlander 10 aircraft, in partnership with Collins Aerospace and Nottingham University, has been awarded a grant of £1.1m from the UK Aerospace Research and Technology Programme, to develop electric propulsion technologies.

The project, E-HAV1, will develop a prototype 500kW electric propulsion system, with the ultimate aim of replacing Airlander 10’s fuel-burning forward engines, in a first step towards an all-electric version of the aircraft.

Airlander 10 is a hybrid aircraft that relies on a combination of buoyant lift from helium like an airship, aerodynamic lift like an aeroplane and vectored thrust like a helicopter.

In this way it already consumes significantly less fuel than conventional aircraft, but the addition of electric forward propulsors will improve this even further, according to Nick Allman, executive director at HAV.

“The aircraft is already a low-carbon aerospace product, but we have our sights set more ambitiously in that we’re trying to be zero-carbon,” said Allman. “There are inherent features of our aircraft that we believe position us to be at the forefront of moving in that direction,” he said.