Electra unveils turbo-electric aircraft concept for next-generation aircraft | News
Electra, the world leader in hybrid-electric aviation, today unveiled a new conceptual aircraft design for next-generation aircraft developed as part of NASA’s Advanced Aircraft Concepts for Environmental Sustainability (AACES) 2050 program. The study examines how targeted electrification, advanced aerodynamics and integrated airframe propulsion design can transform the efficiency and competitiveness of aircraft carrying more than a hundred passengers by mid-century.
Electra’s work is rooted in the company’s vision that aviation is entering a third era of flight, an era defined by the ability to use new electric propulsion technologies to unlock transformative, yet feasible aircraft architectures. In Electra’s nine-passenger EL9, this approach enables ultra-short takeoff and landing and a new model from Direct Aviation. In the AACES 2050 concept, it enables a future aircraft configuration designed to improve efficiency while remaining compatible with airline and airport practices.
The conceptual aircraft uses a wide ‘double bubble’ fuselage that allows the aircraft’s fuselage to contribute more lift, while two turbofan engines under the wings produce thrust and electricity to power electric tail fans that take in and re-energize slower-moving air over the fuselage, a technique known as boundary layer ingestion. Electra’s analysis found that the configuration could deliver up to 17 percent efficiency gains, exceeding the gains expected by 2050 from advanced structures, engine technologies and aerodynamic improvements.
“The value of electrification in this concept is that we can put propulsion where it couldn’t go before, but do the most good,” said Dr. Parker Vascik, Director of Product Strategy at Electra. “We can radically improve the way the airframe and propulsion system work together while keeping the aircraft on the ground during real aviation and airport operations. The goal is not just efficiency on paper, but concepts that we can actually build, certify and use.”
Electra’s concept is designed to fit within existing airport gates and aviation operations, to use standard jet fuel or sustainable jet fuel and to avoid reliance on airport charging infrastructure or untested fuel types. The configuration also supports a twin-aisle cabin layout within the narrowbody aircraft class, improving passenger comfort and making boarding and egress more efficient.
The work was led by Dr. Alejandra Uranga, Electra’s chief engineer for research and future concepts. Dr. Uranga previously co-led NASA-sponsored research at MIT that helped advance the original twin-bubble aircraft concept and the D8 aircraft design. Electra’s AACES 2050 work revises that architecture with new capabilities enabled by electrification and distributed propulsion.
“This concept builds on years of research into how airframe shape and propulsion placement can work together to improve aircraft efficiency,” said Dr. Uranga. “What is different now is the ability to use electrification and distributed propulsion to more deeply integrate these systems. Designing the aircraft as a whole system is essential to realizing the full potential of future commercial aircraft.”
In addition to the concept, Electra developed eleven technical articles documenting the models, methods and findings behind the research. The company also adopted NASA’s open-source multidisciplinary design and optimization tool Aviary and developed an electrified aircraft design suite intended for public use. Together, these contributions are intended to advance the broader aeronautical research community, not just advance a single aircraft concept.
Electra’s AACES 2050 team brought together leaders from industry and academia, including American Airlines, Honeywell Aerospace, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, Hinetics, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the University of Michigan’s Department of Aerospace Engineering and the University of California, Irvine’s Aircraft Systems Laboratory.
“Through AACES, NASA is pushing industry to think boldly, using our new propulsion technologies to disrupt design thinking for the next generation of commercial aviation,” said Marc Allen, CEO of Electra. “The Third Age of Aviation will bring radical changes to the way people and places connect, whether through aircraft entering service this decade, future regional platforms or commercial transportation by mid-century. Electra’s focus as a leader in hybrid electricity is to keep American aviation and NASA ahead.”
The AACES 2050 program aims to explore aircraft concepts and technologies that could help shape commercial aviation in the 2040s, 2050s and beyond. Electra’s concept adds a near-term electrification path to that broader portfolio of aircraft studies, complementing other approaches focused on advanced propulsion, new fuels and next-generation aircraft architectures.
“Electra’s aircraft concept now gives American industry an opportunity to lead by combining decades of research in lifting hull design with groundbreaking electric propulsion,” said Dr. Vascik. “Yet the industry will not be able to bring this concept to fruition on its own by 2050. This will require a NASA-accelerated technology initiative – in a double bubble
