Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Bjorn’s Corner: Faster aircraft development. Part 2.
By Bjorn Fehrm
August 8, 2025, ©. Leeham News: We do a series about ideas on how the long development times for large airliners can be shortened. New projects talk about cutting development time and reaching certification and production faster than previous projects.
The series will discuss the typical development cycles for an FAA Part 25 aircraft, called a transport category aircraft, and what different ideas there are to reduce the development times.
We will use the Gantt plan in Figure 1 as a base for our discussions.
Figure 1. A generic Part 25 airliner development plan. Source: Leeham Co. Click to see better.
Bjorn’s Corner: Faster aircraft development. Part 1.
By Bjorn Fehrm
August 1, 2025, ©. Leeham News: Four years ago I did a series about aircraft development together with Henry Tam and Andrew Telesca. Both worked on the Mitsubishi Spacejet program. You can find the series here.
It was about the arduous task of developing and producing a certified aircraft for the FAA Part 23 standard and its EASA equivalent. The idea was to better describe what’s ahead for the many upstarts that wanted to develop 9-seat and 19-seat alternative propulsion aircraft.
Now we do a series about recent ideas on how the long development times for large airliners can be shortened. New projects talk about cutting development calendar time by one-third or more. Is this realistic?
Figure 1. The A350 development schedule from December 2011. Source: Airbus.
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Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 4.
By Bjorn Fehrm
January 10, 2025, ©. Leeham News: We do a Corner series about the state of developments to replace or improve hydrocarbon propulsion concepts for Air Transport. We try to understand why the development has been slow.
We listed the different projects in the second Corner of the series that have come as far as flying a functional model or prototype. In Part 3, we went through some of the causes of the slow growth. It was a mix of inexperienced startup managments, all wanting to be the new Elon Musk but lacking elementary knowledge in the aeronautical field, to what is the real hard part of an alternative propulsion concept.
Many startups developed new electric motors for eAirplane or eVTOL use, a relatively straightforward development when the real hard part is the batteries. We described how batteries differ significantly from fuel as an energy source in Part 3.
Now, we add a market aspect that is poorly understood by most players.
Figure 1. The Pipistrel Velis Electro trainer. Source: Pipistrel.
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 3
By Bjorn Fehrm
November 1, 2024, ©. Leeham News: We do a Corner series about the state of developments to replace or improve hydrocarbon propulsion concepts for Air Transport. We will find that development has been very slow.
Last week, we listed the different projects that have come as far as flying a functional model or prototype, as we need this filter to reduce the hundreds of projects that have declared they want to develop such an aircraft type. We can see that we have only a certified two-seat trainer, and one project has a prototype that has started certification, the CX300 six-seater in Figure 1.
Why is the progress so slow?
Figure 1. The Alia CX300 six-seater started certification in 2023. Source: Beta Technologies.
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 2.
October 24, 2024, ©. Leeham News: We do a Corner series about the state of developments to replace or improve hydrocarbon propulsion concepts for Air Transport. We will find that development has been very slow.
We don’t have, and will not have, a certified and produced aircraft that can transport passengers using anything but classical propulsion concepts this side of 2028 and probably 2030 if we put the bar above five passengers.
This is 14 years after the flight of the Airbus E-Fan in 2014, which started a multitude of studies and projects to explore new, more environmentally friendly ways to propel aircraft.
Figure 1. The Airbus E-fan flying at the 2014 Farnborough Air Show. Source: Wikipedia.
Why is the progress so slow? Normal aircraft development takes seven to a maximum of nine years?
Heart Aerospace’s revised ES-30, Part 2
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By Bjorn Fehrm
October 17, 2024, © Leeham News: We analyze Heart Aerospace’s latest evolution of the hybrid ES-30 (bottom aircraft in the picture), which replaces the original battery-based 19-seater (top aircraft) and the original ES-30 (mid aircraft).
The latest version, presented in spring 2024, is a parallel hybrid, putting gas turbine turboprop engines outside the electric motors. What are the advantages of the parallel hybrid version, and will it make the Heart ES-30 project more likely to succeed?
We use our Aircraft Performance and Cost Model (APCM) to understand the design choices and the costs involved.
Summary:
- The latest revision of the Heart Aerospace hybrid electric aircraft, the ES-30, takes the hybrid architecture from a serial to a parallel system. It simplifies the architecture.
- Does the revised ES-30 make airline operational sense? We analyze this using our Aircraft Performance and Cost Model.
Heart Aerospace’s revised ES-30
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By Bjorn Fehrm
September 26, 2024, © Leeham News: Heart Aerospace has revised its environmentally friendly aircraft for the third time. The variants started in September 2020, when Heart presented an all-electric, battery-based 19-seat airliner that should test fly by now and be available in 2026, Figure 1, top aircraft.
Two years later, in September 2022, it all changed. The aircraft was changed to a 30-seater with a serial hybrid propulsion system using turboextenders to increase the operational range, Figure 1, aircraft two.
After another 20 months, the configuration changed again to the third iteration in Figure 1, which will fly in prototype in 2026 and be available to airlines in 2029.
In an article series, we explain the reasons for these changes and analyze whether the changes in the aircraft have increased the likelihood of the ES-30 entering the market in 2029.
Figure 1. The Heart Aerospace regional airliner series. Top, the ES-19, then the ES-30, and finally, the revised ES-30. Source: Heart Aerospace.
Summary:
- Heart Aerospace has followed the typical trajectory for an electric aircraft startup.
- It begins with an all-electric, battery-based airliner that will change regional flying.
- Gradually, reality sets in, and all-battery architecture becomes a serial hybrid and, finally, a parallel hybrid.
- We analyze if the evolution trail increases the chances we will fly on Heart Aerospace airliners come 2030.
Bjorn’s Corner: New engine development. Part 24. New versus old, GTF versus V2500
By Bjorn Fehrm
September 13, 2024, ©. Leeham News: We do an article series about engine development and why it has longer timelines than airframe development. It also carries larger risks of product maturity problems when it enters service than the airframe of an airliner.
We have covered the engine’s different parts and their technology challenges. We now look at some examples of recent developments with problems and put them in a historical perspective.
Bjorn’s Corner: New engine development. Part 23. Development risks.
By Bjorn Fehrm
September 30, 2024, ©. Leeham News: We do an article series about engine development and why it has longer timelines than airframe development. It also carries larger risks of product maturity problems when it enters service than the airframe of an airliner.
We have covered the parts of an engine that involve challenging technology and which decide its reliability (dispatch consistency) and durability (time on wing). Now, we discuss why modern engine design is more challenging regarding these parameters than airframe design.
Figure 1. The Pratt & Whitney GTF in cross-section, one of the new engines. Source: Pratt & Whitney.
Maeve, P&W Canada team for new hybrid propulsion system airplane
By Bjorn Fehrm and Scott Hamilton
July 24, 2024, © Leeham News at Farnborough International Airshow: Start-up airplane company Maeve and Pratt & Whitney Canada (PWC) have teamed for the design of a new eco-airplane driven by a new type of hybrid electric propulsion system with a target service entry date of 2032.
The M80 aircraft is the latest iteration of a design conceived by Maeve of the Netherlands. It is a 76 to 96-seat twin-engine aircraft that is compliant with the restrictive US pilot Scope Clauses, which limit the size, number, and weight of airplanes operated on behalf of US major airlines. Maeve originally designed a four-engine, 44-passenger electric aircraft called the M01.
Figure 1. The Maeve M80 combines an all-new powerplant from Pratt & Whitney Canada and downward wing droops instead of upward winglets. Source: Maeve.