Aviation Week reports that Textron Aviation’s Beechcraft Denali “is making its public debut at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, where the new turboprop single attracted a stream of interest at the manufacturer’s chalet.” The P2 aircraft on display “is one of three flying Denalis undergoing flight testing; the fleet has accumulated 1,500 flight hr. to date.” First announced in July 2016, the Denali’s development “has been slowed by supply chain issues and delays in certification of its new, 1,300-shp GE Aviation Catalyst engine, the first clean-sheet turboprop engine design in the past 50 years.” The Denali will also “feature Garmin’s G3000 avionics suite with integrated Autothrottle and Autoland.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)
Tag: turboprop
Dovetail Electric to Offer Electric, Hydrogen Refits to Turboprop Aircraft
Aviation Week reports that Dovetail Electric Aviation has been formed to “develop and offer battery-electric and hydrogen-electric powertrain retrofits for a range of turboprop commuter aircraft.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)
Airbus CEO: Hydrogen Aircraft “Ultimate Solution” to Environmental Issues
CNBC reports Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury said aviation could “potentially face significant hurdles if we don’t manage to decarbonize at the right pace.” Airbus is focusing on “ensuring planes burned less fuel” and emitted less carbon dioxide. Faury said, “We need to see the SAF industry moving forwards, being developed, being grown to serve airlines and to be able to use that capacity of 50% of SAF. We’ll go to 100% by the end of the decade.”
Full Story (CNBC)
Eurocontrol Says Aviation Industry Could Cut 25% of CO2 Output by 2030 Using Existing Technologies
Aviation International News reports that “every flight operating in Europe could become on average more than 25 percent ‘greener’ by 2030 while using existing technology, according to a new so-called think paper published by Eurocontrol on Tuesday.” The paper “asserts that the aviation industry can make significant progress toward the ‘perfect green flight’ through measures including increased use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), more efficient use of airspace, and fleet modernization by airlines.” The study “also concluded that emerging aircraft technologies in the form of hybrid, fully electric, and hydrogen airplanes will ‘transform’ aviation during the 20-year period starting in 2030. By 2050, those new airplanes will prevail on short- to medium-haul routes, while SAF use will predominate in long-haul operations.”
Full Story (Aviation International News)
Sources Say Airbus Is Favoring Turboprop Model for First Hydrogen Plane
Bloomberg reports that a “turboprop design is gaining momentum within Airbus SE as the solution to its challenge of developing a hydrogen jet by 2035, according to people familiar with the matter.” The “propeller plane would carry around 100 passengers for about 1,000 nautical miles.” The “other two designs are for a 200-seat blended wing, which Airbus has already said it’s unlikely to pursue first due to the challenges of certification, and a more-familiar-looking turbofan approach, which could fly more than 2,000 nautical miles – about two-thirds as far as the company’s mainstay A320 single-aisle jets.” A turboprop plane “would address a smaller market – it could make most hops between European cities, for example, but not fly trans-Atlantic routes or coast-to-coast in the U.S. That makes it less of a threat to conventional jets that go farther and faster.”
Full Story (Bloomberg)