Bjorn’s Corner: Why e in ePlane shall stand for environment, Part 7. Efficiency of cars versus airliners.

January 31, 2020, ©. Leeham News: We now look at ways to increase the fuel efficiency of our airliner and by it, improve the CO2 situation for our environment. Let’s start with understanding where we are with the… Read More

Bjorn’s Corner: Why e in ePlane shall stand for environment, Part 5. Distributed propulsion.

January 17, 2020, ©. Leeham News: We continue our series why e in ePlane shall stand for environment and not electric, where we now examine the gains with electric/hybrid distributed propulsion systems. We started last week with the… Read More

Bjorn’s Corner: Why e in ePlane shall stand for environment. Part 1. Hype versus reality.

December 13, 2019, ©. Leeham News: The first all-electric commercial aircraft, a Harbor Air DHC-2 Beaver, flew over the Fraser River near Vancouver in the week (Figure 1). It was powered by a magniX electric engine fed with… Read More

Airbus CEO says the airline industry must cut carbon emission with 50% by 2050

By Bjorn Fehrm  June 18, 2019, ©. Leeham News: Airbus new management team has set the company ambitious targets for the future. These not only describe how to develop and produce new, more competitive airliners but also defines… Read More

Bjorn’s Corner: Why hybrid cars work and hybrid airliners have challenges

June 14, 2019, ©. Leeham News: In last week’s Corner we discussed why aircraft with batteries as an energy source will be short ranged for decades to come. The battery energy density is too low and it won’t… Read More

Bjorn’s Corner: Why Electric Cars work and Airliners don’t

June 7, 2019, ©. Leeham News: In last week’s Corner I wrote: “The reason electric cars work and airliners don’t is the Sky lacks Stoplights“. The discussion was part of my previous series on Electric aircraft, but it… Read More

Bjorn’s Corner: Electric aircraft, the first fall on the Hype curve

May 31, 2019, ©. Leeham News: Last week the new Airbus CTO, Grazia Vittadini, said we should not expect electric aircraft anytime soon when presenting at Airbus Innovation days. What is realistic is hybrid developments, not battery-based designs…. Read More

Zunum Aero is betting on better batteries tomorrow and the day after

By Dan Catchpole danieljcatchpole(at)gmail(dot)com Subscription Required Introduction Oct. 15, 2018, © Leeham News: Battery technology today leaves a lot to be desired. The energy density of even the most advanced batteries are a sliver of the density in… Read More

Bjorn’s Corner: Electric aircraft, Part 13

September 22, 2017, ©. Leeham Co: After 12 articles about electric aircraft, it’s time to wrap up. We will go through what we have learned and discuss future developments. Our designs were aimed for the next decade and the… Read More

Bjorn’s Corner: Electric aircraft, Part 12

September 15, 2017, ©. Leeham Co: Last week we compared the energy economics of our 10-seater electric commuter to an equivalent commuter with gas turbine power. Now we dig a bit deeper in the operational costs of the two… Read More