Leeham News and Analysis
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What’s the next new aircraft, Part 4
By Bjorn Fehrm
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July 28, 2025, © Leeham News: In Part 4 of our five-part series on examining the potential next generation of aircraft in the coming decades, we take a closer look at Aircraft 5 to 8 in our Figure 1.
Figure 1. The 13 airliners we look at in the series. Source: Leeham Co.
These are the (5) GE, NASA, and Boeing hybrid airliner, (6) Airbus ZEROe hydrogen airliner, (7) Boeing’s NMA, and (8) the Boeing New Light Twin.
We examine the market for these aircraft, their technological challenges, and their potential future.
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 32. Epilogue.
By Bjorn Fehrm
July 25, 2025, ©. Leeham News: In October last year, we began a series on how air transport is performing against the emission goals for the year 2050.
The ambition to reduce and eventually eliminate greenhouse gas emissions began in earnest 11 years ago, when Airbus flew the Airbus E-Fan at the 2014 Farnborough Air Show (Figure 1).
Figure 1. The Airbus E-fan flying at the 2014 Farnborough Air Show. Source: Wikipedia.
The result of this inspiring flight, which utilized technology that emitted no CO2 or other greenhouse gases (if the batteries were charged with green electricity), was an avalanche of projects from established players as well as upstarts. The optimistic view was that there was a solution to the emissions from airliners.
What’s the next new aircraft? Part 3
By Scott Hamilton and Bjorn Fehrm
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July 24, 2025, © Leeham News: In Part 3 of our five-part series on examining the potential next generation of aircraft in the coming decades, we take a closer look at Aircraft projects 1 to 4 in our Figure 1.
Figure 1. The 13 airliner ideas we look at in the series. Source: Leeham Co.
These are the (1) A220-500, (2) Boeing’s Transonic Truss Brace Wing (TTBW), (3) Boom’s Overture Super Sonic Transport (SST), and (4) the Blended Wing Body (BWB) aircraft suggested by leading proponent Jet Zero.
What’s the next new aircraft, Part 2
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By Bjorn Fehrm
July 21, 2025, © Leeham News: Our series about “What’s the next new aircraft” was introduced last week, where we look at what potential new aircraft could be introduced over the following decades, and what technologies these would use.
In Part 2 of the five-part series, we introduce some basics around aircraft efficiency and examine what areas these 13 new aircraft aim to improve to enhance their efficiency.
In the following Parts, we will look into these aircraft in more detail and write about how challenging it will be to develop and mature the needed technologies.
Figure 1. The 13 new aircraft concepts that we study. Source: Leeham Co.
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 21.
By Bjorn Fehrm
May 9, 2025, ©. Leeham News: We do a Corner series about the state of developments to improve the emission situation for Air Transport. We try to understand why development has been slow.
Since we started in October last year, we have looked at:
- Alternative, lower emission propulsion technologies, ranging from electric aircraft with batteries as energy source, different propulsion hybrids, and new concepts for Jet-fuel and Hydrogen gas turbine engines.
- We have also reviewed recent research on the role of CO2, NOx emissions, and Contrails generated by airliners in global warming.
- Two weeks ago, we summarized the present situation around SAF, Sustainable Aviation Fuel.
Last week, we listed some base data about the present situation for Global Air Transport. We will now use this data to calculate the effect of air transport on global warming from the three alternatives.
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 10.
By Bjorn Fehrm
February 21, 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.
Last week, we reviewed the present fallout of lower emission projects that have not reached their goals and where investors, therefore, have decided not to invest further.
There is a well-known project failing every month at the present pace. Some recent ones: Universal Hydrogen’s ATR conversions, Volocopter and Lilium’s bankruptcies, Airbus freezing the CityAirbus eVTOL (Figure 1) and pushing out the ZEROe hydrogen airliner, hibernation of the Alice battery aircraft, etc. There will probably be more in the coming months.
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 8
By Bjorn Fehrm
February 7, 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 have covered the progress of battery-based aircraft and hybrids, where the last Corner was about the most sensible hybrids, the mild hybrids. Now, we turn to hydrogen-fueled alternatives.
Figure 1. The operation of a PEM fuel cell. Source: NASA.
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 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?
Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 1.
By Bjorn Fehrm
October 18, 2024, ©. Leeham News: In Corners over the last years, we have covered new airliner technology and engine developments that would apply to the next-generation airliners in the largest segment of the market, the single-aisle segment, or as we like to call it, the Heart of the Market segment, as it’s not sure it will be a single-aisle aircraft.
The series has assumed this generation will be hydrocarbon-fueled gas turbine-propelled airplanes. Therefore, it has not covered the current state of alternatives to gas turbine-based hydrocarbon propulsion.
We will cover this now. We are now 10 years into the discussions and work of reducing Air Transport’s reliance on hydrocarbon fuels, which started in earnest when Airbus flew the E-Fan battery-electric aircraft at the Farnborough Air Show in 2014, Figure 1.
How are we doing?
Figure 1. Airbus E-Fan at Farnborough Air Show 2014. Source: Wikipedia.