British firm develops ultra-quiet bioelectric hybrid aircraft

A hybrid plane designed by a British company will be ready for commercial flights in 2026 and it is hoped there will be a fleet of 300 operational by the end of the decade. 

Faradair, a company based in Cirencester, is working on its bio-electric aircraft (Beha) which will be capable of reaching speeds of around 230mph.

The airplane sports a triple-box wing design — a throwback to an experimental design first used in the 1920s — and is designed to be eco-friendly, and eventually carbon neutral.    

Beha will have 18 seats and be powered by a combination of electric motors and biofuel. Electric motors will orchestrate take-off and landing but the biofuel engines will take over while cruising to power a turbogenerator. The engines will also help recharge the electric motors, with the assistance of solar panels.  

The plane has been in development since Faradair was founded in 2014 but a lack of Government funding and support saw Neil Cloughley, Faradair’s chief executive, turn to private investors for support. 

With financial backing secured, a prototype of the futuristic vehicle is now being created.

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The biofuel engine is seen by Mr Cloughley as an interim solution on the path to a true carbon neutral version further down the line. 

At the moment, the technology does not exist for a plane that makes no emissions and a hybrid is the best compromise, he believes. 

‘All electric wasn’t going to be possible straight off the bat,’ he told The Guardian. 

‘The power density simply isn’t there for anything of any meaningful size. That means that we have to go hybrid; it means that sustainable aviation fuels [SAFs] will be the ideal.’ 

Sustainable aviation fuels are made from leftover materials, such as waste oil and surplus food and livestock feed. This recycling reduces carbon emissions compared to traditionally manufactured aviation fuel but is still polluting. 

Currently just six per cent of all jet fuel is SAF but the UK Government hopes that by 2030 this percentage will be around 83 per cent.  

Take off and landing of Beha will be controlled by the electric motors while the engine takes over as the primary power source throughout the cruising phase of the flight.

The company has been in a long-term partnership with Swansea University to perfect its unique ‘triple box-wing’ design which is intended to maximise lift.   

Faradair’s concept plane was purposely designed to allow it to take off and land on runways less than 1,000 feet (300 meters) long. 

It utilises a system called ‘vectored thrust’ from two contra-rotating propfans in the rear which are housed in a sound-cancelling area of the vehicle.

Engineers working on the project say these, in combination with electric-powered take off and lansing, means noise levels will be far lower than traditional jet engines. 

Faradair claims take-off noise will be as little as 60 decibels, similar to the noise level of background music and conversation. 

A typical jet engine used on many existing airliners at the moment creates 140 decibels of noise. 

Beha is predominantly intended for passenger transportation but would also be able to carry cargo of up to five tonnes by striping out the seats. The transition from freight to passenger flight can be done in 15 minutes, Faradair claims. 

Mr Cloughley says the plane is a compromise which is necessary to improve aviation’s environmental credentials in the short-term while fully carbon neutral alternatives are developed. 

‘[It will not be] the sleekest, the sexiest, nor the fastest, the highest or the furthest flying aircraft,’ he says. 

But he believes its appeal is in its low emissions, cheapness and flexibility. Its green credentials will only improve as electric motors and battery tech continues to improve, Mr Cloughley says. 

Beha and Faradair’s central principle includes electric power and short-haul flights, but other manufacturers have taken a different approach. 

Aviation giant Airbus, for example, is focusing its efforts on hydrogen power. In September 2020 it unveiled three new plane designs which it wants to have in circulation by 2035. 

One is a propellor-powered short-haul plane, a direct rival to Beha. 

Airbus sees hydrogen fuel cells, which produce power and the only waste product is water, as the future of aviation.  

In December, Airbus also revealed its designs for self-contained hydrogen fuel cell pods that attach to the underside of aeroplane wings.

Each pod contains a propeller and all the fuel, motors, cooling and engineering needed to provide thrust on long-range flights.  

The units are designed to be detachable, so they can can be clipped on and off after a flight to speed up any maintenance that may be required. 

Airbus hopes that the pods could could revolutionise air travel and usher in a new era of zero-emission flights.  

In the design, three hydrogen fuel cell pods are attached to the underside of each of the aircraft’s wings.

Hydrogen and air are stored inside each individual pod and channelled to the fuel cell, where they combine to generate electric current.