Honeywell Energized over Electric Flight

With the recent advances in electrical power generation and storage, the promise of air taxi services and longer haul passenger aircraft powered by electricity is moving closer to reality, and one of the companies leading the vanguard is Honeywell Aerospace (Booth 2600) with a series of new generators.

“Because of all the work that has been done in the energy storage market with batteries, it absolutely now has become very clear that this could be a reality for [the industry],” said Amanda King, the company’s senior director of breakthrough technology and power systems. “It’s not a matter of if, but when. I really believe it will happen and it’s exciting.”

The impetus for the electrification of aviation came from the auto industry, which invested huge amounts of capital in developing higher-energy-density batteries and systems for generating charging them, King said. “They started out as hybrid of course, and then have evolved,” she told AIN, adding that the needs for aviation power storage have since diverged from those of ground-based vehicles due to different demands, as well as regulatory and certification requirements as the industry evolves.

As an example, she cited the extreme example of an all-electric passenger aircraft that could fly cross country. “That takes a whole new kind of energy storage that the automobile industry likely wouldn’t invest in, so that’s going to have to come from [aviation].” She believes that for short-hop aircraft carrying two to three passengers, all-electric power is a likely possibility, but “if you think about having any kind of cargo, or anything more than three passengers, that’s when I think you are going to start getting into to more of a need of hybrid.”

That will require generators to charge the batteries, and Honeywell is working on compact, high-capacity units. It currently has a 200Kw generator, which weighs under 60 pounds, and a larger version is set to begin testing early next year. “We’re developing a megawatt generator, which is about the size of a fire hydrant, and weighs about 270 pounds,” said King. “That’s a lot of power in a really small package and we’re excited about the types of things that we can do with that.”

While hybrid aircraft, if properly configured, should be able to charge their own batteries in flight, according to King, all-electric aircraft could require consideration not just from agencies such as the FAA, but from city planners as well in terms of demand on infrastructure. “It takes about the amount of power it would take to power a highrise to recharge one of these electric VTOLs,” she said. “So if you think about landing on a rooftop in Manhattan or someplace, you can’t just use the power of that building you landed on to recharge. If the eVTOL air-taxi business takes off, then certainly the power grids will have to be reevaluated, and that could be part of the decision process for any given city to determine how many they could have operating within their limits.”

When those aircraft might take to the air is a question yet unanswered. “Some folks are a little bit optimistic on the timeline, I’ve heard as early as 2020 to be commercialized and out there flying,” noted King. “I don’t know that that timeframe is achievable in a sort of commercial volume type achievement. I think it’s going to be a little bit farther out, but again I certainly think it's going to happen.”

King brims with enthusiasm over what the promise of electrification brings to the industry. “It’s really fun to be in aerospace right now, because this is probably the biggest evolution that we’re seeing since the jet engine.”