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So we have yet another bright-eyed, fast-talking young visionary looking to disrupt the airline industry and change the world with a new technology.
Wonderful! We've been dreaming of an electric replacement for jet transports.
In this case: the electric-combustion turbojet aircraft engine. He's focusing on supersonic transport.
He is claiming it will be dramatically more efficient and cheaper to manufacture.
He is also greenwashing it.
Q: Is it more efficient than an ultra-high bypass turbofan? His design uses an electric motor to power the fan and compressor sections. That electrical power must come from somewhere. In the beginning they depict that power coming from a separate turboshaft engine. So, at this point, we've taken a twin configuration and added a third engine. The remainder of the video completely ignores the source of the electrical power (test engines are using ground power). It seems to me that one of the most elegant and efficient aspects of current turbofan design is that the combustion section is both providing thrust and driving the fan and compressors, with a large portion of thrust coming from the fan itself. No energy is wasted. How does driving the compressor and fan sections with an external turboshaft increase efficiency?
Q: Is it cheaper as installed. Considering that it requires an additional turboshaft installation for electrical power. And god knows what equipment will be required to transport LNG (see below).
Q: Is it cleaner and less damaging to the environment? The main engines burn LNG, methane (no info on what the generator turboshaft is using for fuel). While methane does burn cleaner than jet fuel, raw methane gas is far more damaging to the environment and methane gas extraction and transport is notoriously leaky. So the entire supply chain must be considered when establishing the carbon impact of a given fuel. He is also advocating the demise of large transport aircraft, replacing them with a far greater number of small, supersonic transports flying on-demand routes (the private-jet model, the on-demand economy). So we have replaced the two turbofans on an A350 with dozens of his engines, burning fuel, not at best range efficiency of subsonic flight, but at a rate needed to attain and sustain supersonic flight. How can this be more efficient? And, of course, if this tech were ever to be applied to large transports, what is the environmental impact of dumping LNG in-flight prior to an emergency return?
Q: Is this safe? Is it possible to use fuel-inerting systems on LNG fuel cells? LNG is notoriously dangerous stuff. Also, there is no apparent redundancy for the loss of the generator turboshaft. Perhaps a battery or APU could provide that sufficiently enough to divert and land.
Q: If the answer to the above questions are not YES, than who is funding this? Who is buying into it within the legitimate aerospace industry? Does this have any appeal to aeroengineers?
Or is this more of the Elon-gation of reality, suspension-of-disbelief that allows young opportunists to survive and prosper by charming the venture capital bros, building unrealistic technology with private equity and charismatic showmanship? Who knows, maybe it will power Hyperloop one day. To Mars. By 2025.
Or perhaps the monetization is actually in the videos themselves. The creator (crater) economy. Getting views. Getting followers. Getting attention. Notice that, despite the presence of a small team of engineers, he constantly refers to "what I am doing".
The video:
Wonderful! We've been dreaming of an electric replacement for jet transports.
In this case: the electric-combustion turbojet aircraft engine. He's focusing on supersonic transport.
He is claiming it will be dramatically more efficient and cheaper to manufacture.
He is also greenwashing it.
Q: Is it more efficient than an ultra-high bypass turbofan? His design uses an electric motor to power the fan and compressor sections. That electrical power must come from somewhere. In the beginning they depict that power coming from a separate turboshaft engine. So, at this point, we've taken a twin configuration and added a third engine. The remainder of the video completely ignores the source of the electrical power (test engines are using ground power). It seems to me that one of the most elegant and efficient aspects of current turbofan design is that the combustion section is both providing thrust and driving the fan and compressors, with a large portion of thrust coming from the fan itself. No energy is wasted. How does driving the compressor and fan sections with an external turboshaft increase efficiency?
Q: Is it cheaper as installed. Considering that it requires an additional turboshaft installation for electrical power. And god knows what equipment will be required to transport LNG (see below).
Q: Is it cleaner and less damaging to the environment? The main engines burn LNG, methane (no info on what the generator turboshaft is using for fuel). While methane does burn cleaner than jet fuel, raw methane gas is far more damaging to the environment and methane gas extraction and transport is notoriously leaky. So the entire supply chain must be considered when establishing the carbon impact of a given fuel. He is also advocating the demise of large transport aircraft, replacing them with a far greater number of small, supersonic transports flying on-demand routes (the private-jet model, the on-demand economy). So we have replaced the two turbofans on an A350 with dozens of his engines, burning fuel, not at best range efficiency of subsonic flight, but at a rate needed to attain and sustain supersonic flight. How can this be more efficient? And, of course, if this tech were ever to be applied to large transports, what is the environmental impact of dumping LNG in-flight prior to an emergency return?
Q: Is this safe? Is it possible to use fuel-inerting systems on LNG fuel cells? LNG is notoriously dangerous stuff. Also, there is no apparent redundancy for the loss of the generator turboshaft. Perhaps a battery or APU could provide that sufficiently enough to divert and land.
Q: If the answer to the above questions are not YES, than who is funding this? Who is buying into it within the legitimate aerospace industry? Does this have any appeal to aeroengineers?
Or is this more of the Elon-gation of reality, suspension-of-disbelief that allows young opportunists to survive and prosper by charming the venture capital bros, building unrealistic technology with private equity and charismatic showmanship? Who knows, maybe it will power Hyperloop one day. To Mars. By 2025.
Or perhaps the monetization is actually in the videos themselves. The creator (crater) economy. Getting views. Getting followers. Getting attention. Notice that, despite the presence of a small team of engineers, he constantly refers to "what I am doing".
The video:
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