How NASA's New 2050 Goals Could Reshape Airliners
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Hello and welcome to aviation week check six podcast i'm going in as senior editor and with me is grown worried executive editor c technology. Just a few days ago in midden november, naster awarded a series of contracts to develop sustainable concepts for future airliners for the twenty fifties, issued under the advanced aircraft concepts for environmental sustainability, or aces twenty fifty project face one contracts were issued to bowings company or a flight sciences start up electric ero and jet zero engine maker, prot whitty and the georgia institute technology.

If this all sounds a bit familiar at shift, aces follows a tried and tested blueprint, first drawn up by another in two thousand and eight when IT launched the end, plus three project to identify concepts and technologies for airlines that could enter service into twenty thirty five. This ultimately LED to the agency's sustainable flight national partnership, or S F N P, and the transonic trust based wing T T B W X sixty six. So now aces is looking to go beyond S F M P to see what comes next to discuss cases and an aggressive set of associated new performance matrix that na is just released.

We're pleased to welcome Richard walls, S F M P manager friend of this podcast and lead author of the original epu s three solicated and who LED the initial review recommendations. So rich, welcome and thank you for joining us. Um gonna all the ball rolling bus. Why is aces shooting for a twenty fifty time frame by not say twenty forty?

Well first of all, thanks for having beyond. I am a fan of the show. Um I learned a lot like listening in. Um so timing timing of vases. It's again going back to look at what we didn't, two thousand and eight.

You're trying to get beyond the horizon of what the next product kind of cycle is to get people out of the box in industry and universities and also to allow an more reasonable time frame for development to happen from something that really starts at at an exploratory level. So this is twenty twenty four, twenty fifty is only twenty six years away. That's not that far really in in the time scale of aviation.

right? Gram, you are saying that if you look back in the the original time scale from two thousand and eight for one plus three party well lows, the same pattern, right? Yeah.

I think so. I mean, you know, IT takes a long time in this business to mature technology to the point where you can incorporate that technology into an aircraft development program. And obvious, I take develop the aircrafts.

So if you you're looking at twenty thirty five, you really need to be able to make a product decision. Twenty, twenty eight, you know twenty twenty eight and twenty nine certain ly by the end of the decade. Now based on what we've seen the industry achieve in terms of development time films, you've got to make that decision before the end of the decade twenty and twenty nine.

And then you take you were backwards from that to say, you know that how do we get technologies to the the usually recognize technology regions level of six, which is the proven at scale in a representative environment, which says we've reduced the risk to the point where we can put that into a product development program. Now it's actually getting more, more complete. It's not just T, R, L anymore.

You got to have all these other areas in manufacturing readers and integration readiness and all these other things. But they kind of come the coles' point. So i'm that technology, E, E is ready to buy its way into this for that. See you were back from that and say, you, and if you're NASA, what you have to say is, how do I lay out route map that says, here's where I NASA invest government money with industry in technologies that that I can get ready by that time for me, right? So in the case of endless three leading to x six to six, you had to get started back in two thousand and eight to get that technology road map laid out and then move up the risk, the red, this scale will reduce the risk.

So if you now look at twenty fifty, you have to start now, you know, and we also know that into three left a lot of technology on the table, because the studies that came out eventless three, which which you and I guy was just like something like gold mines. I mean, these were just most contested do to days. We looked to the technologies, but a lot of those technologies were identified, but they were too far out, right? So you saw in put three sort of light narrow down into what became S, F, M, P.

And the technology. Finally, that being, look, that S, F, M, P, just by wing, small core engines, higher ate deposits at sea. Now you restart that process. And probably a lot of technology that were identified at the beginning event, the story, but but left on the table because they were not ready, will be looked at again and say, you know, if we now look at twenty fifty, do these technologies make sense?

Yeah and rich, can you? I know we briefly mentioned them in the intro there, but could you kind of workers through some of the projects that are not gonna be included under this this new phase or this aces program?

Yeah, you went through there were five awards and there's A A boing's LED team or aora with buying that you back in in plus three. There were two separate companies, another one, and they have partners with them, pint state, michigan MIT or involved them elector, which interestingly is LED by john langford, who used to be a and now has separate campaign. He's got a team looking at distributed electric propulsion like they're a smaller vehicle.

They're flying now um jet zero um you know who is doing the blind body body project now? Um there would be looking at craggy hydration and i'll look at IT a tube and wing and concept as well. George attack is is the one university LED team.

Um there i've got a concept. They're starting from the hygiene base, but there like other teams, are looking at kind of the range of possibilities. And pratt Whitney, an engine light company we had, they were involved with the mt team in phase one and and others, they're looking at starting with their hydrogen, the concept that came the highlight concept that came out of the artie work.

But there has I understand that they're looking at other concepts as well. I've kind of in this cases, process been more a consulting leading into IT, haven't been directly involved in the selection process. So there's details I don't know, and i'm looking forward to seeing as well.

But but the basic premise was, you know put yourself out there in the future, far enough out in the future to get get get out the box. And in this case, it's like open the appeared to what you think the future energy state might be. Will we have a lot of staff? Will be hydrogen going to be natural gas based? You know what? Whatever, whatever IT might be a highly more highly electric.

And and so there should be exploration, just like there wasn't begin in in place. Three, what a lot of people don't remember is in that phase one, a number of the teams were looking at alternative fuels not safe and IT was pretty exciting. But then when they boiled IT down to the interface one, a lot of those things got eliminated because low in the whole twenty years wasn't was pretty short time to think they were going to change the energy infrastructure, you know. So this opened the appear again.

so used, we wrote about you because industry wasn't just the one study. You know, me, out of industry came some of the projects have additional phases, you know, so aura to go on the D A from a leading, the D A from M I T. I took IT through several phases before they were required by boeing.

The boeing with with what became the x sixty three with their project, got sugar. And that went to, I think, five or six phases is still going in some race and expLoring the fundamentals of trust race wing. But out of that came stakes.

And because, guy, I love all the accordance that come out this because, you know, and those in that sugar study, they had all these designs, they had sugar though, which see electric hyleg tric one. They are freeze, which was the liquid that guest and isolated do this initial study of alternative energy sources. But I think it's much more quartering asis that were not it's not making the assumption that the energy stays the same going to twenty and fifty know and guy rights, you know guy very close following hygiene of commercial aircrafts. And he's noticed now that this is really the first signs of nso opening its apache to hygiene. You know, up until now, whatever we've asked the question of cancer but hydrogen, it's been that's the department energy jobs but now seeing studies at least say hi things in the mix yeah so aces .

is definitely concerted effort that opens the appetite and looks at all these things. But through our university leadership and projects, you know for I mean a good four, five years now, we've had the the cheater concept out of the annoy. That was a hydrological fuel cell based concept.

There were other lower level activities, you know, starting around twenty twenty is when you know in europe, know how you came the popular thing. And we've had some exploratory studies that just hasn't we weren't gonna immediately change the direction of the ship and say that's the answer because it's still not clear that, that's the answer truthfully and because there's lot of questions about how you transition. Is something different? Is there something that's more minded to a transition to a different fuel? And not really know um but that's why we're expLoring IT.

But asis is um a big push. And I think you'll just talking about in the future, you you hear is talking about this kind of transformative what's the energy future landscape? And you will hear aces concepts.

You will hear a couple of the internal ones. Um I think guy reported on one of the seedling studies we had internally at I sai, the charge project. That's a low level activity and and you hear cheat and there's there's other university studies looking at ammonium, things like that under john cabalistic program.

But some people don't remember going back to in plus three again is when we closed out face one. Um there is a reaction. The you NASA people were all excited about all the things and then there was where we're limiting a lot of the possibilities you can we look at at and in plus four right away.

And so when we did in plus three face two, we allowed each of the four face one winners the word to um to bid on an in plus four twelve months in plus four where we said, what if we gave you fifteen more years, ten or fifteen more years, what else would come back in and and that we call the only one of the four that bit on that was the boy sugar team. Everybody else said we want to keep focusing on our on our in plus three in dive and at that and that's what LED to the sugar freeze. Um that was A L N G based um trust race hipe trust race wing with the tail thruster.

And there's a report out on that twenty twelve. So the shirt volt was the one that you boying head g on their team. And if you look back to two thousand and eight, there was lot there was talk about a lot of electrification.

You know airliners were becoming more electric but not in the propulsion sion system um but in the kind of the EV total personal hicor. There was a lot of talk but I do think that NASA had a concept called the n three x that was a superconducting blinder wing body so I was kind of out there. But once we had the year of vote, that kind of had A A NASA stamp with the g and boeing kind of stamp, that this is something that could be possible.

That in my mind, was a turning point when the a whole electrified propulsion for large aircraft took off. I remember marty bradlee and I went to A A battery conference. And we were the only people, we did IT intentionally.

IT was a pure battery conference. We were the only aviation people there. And marty got up and presented the sugar volt. And our idea was, are these battery people going to laugh as out of the room? And they didn't. They said it's a lot of work, but what you're talking about is in the realm of the possible and a lot of a lot of work came from that all over the world. Um I think to actually wanted .

to be guy in here. So he just not just matter. But I mean, now one of the things to be and guys told about the new metrics, he mentioned those early on.

One of things that we need to make clear is that is that NASA came up and an industry loves this. I I didn't interview with with with joan line for the electricity. And we love those metrix.

As I came up with this generational idea of of endurance, N N plus one in pluto and in plus three, which was n was in the state of the art, and and one was the next generations back in, back in the that sort of ID two thousands, and was the seven, seven, eight hundred. And plus one which would become max 20 type technology。 And plus two was the next generation on from that in place.

Three was the twenty thirty five generation. So if I had, you know, and guy can address this. Looking back, that had a huge impact because, you know you've got jet zero on aces and get zero are blended wing body.

And a lot of the technology in that came out to a na program called era environmentally responsible aircraft, which was targeting and plus two, you know, so so we have to realize that these programs, even like, you know, these very simple names and bus and one, but have incredible lasting impact if they work right. And that's what aci's promises. But guy, did you want to come in on on that side of thing?

yeah. I think one of the areas I did wanted to ask Richard, but was these new metrics that we that we've kind of eluded to a couple of times, the fact that they are the sort of in black and White something which they can everybody can aim, and at least it's sort of it's a nice baseline that for everybody to to judge the progress against. If you like, you know what you said earlier, rich, about, you know, you went to opening the appeal.

You talk to the battery people those years ago about the art of the possible. Now we're looking at now other energy sources. You invention that N, G, and of course, liquid hydrogen for the future.

And in its become very clear that these new metrics have evolved to embrace that. And the fact there's so much uncertain is still out there about what is what an earth we could end up in, say, twenty years or oh no where. So would you fail to just talk us through the revised targets a little bit and how that is reflected in that?

So the metric table has its origins way back in like two thousand and six seven when fakir was the substantive fix wing project manager and that's um he um I think maybe there is half kind of originated the in plus one, in plus two and so we started which is in lus one two and added in in plus three when we came out with this original solicated and the meat rics changed over the years in fact when we put put out in plus three, you know we had a much more aggressive noise goal that was meant to be fifty five, basically no noise at the airport bounty.

And the intent was through the phase one in the face to work, we would revise them. You know, we put him out as aspirational goals and see see what we got back. Same thing I think can happen here in asis is that the the far term goal we put we put him out there.

Um i've heard people praise them. I've heard people go, oh my god, they're pretty aggressive you know, in the time frame, they're not that far beyond the mid term goals. And but I hopefully they they find the right baLance.

Now what you're related to with open opening, the appetite is in a world where you have ja or or drop in and carbon and field burn or pretty directly related, you could keep going in the way we were going. But if you enter to a world where you have no carbon in the fuel um and you make a choice, uh for example, using hydrogen in, you will have less carbon out of the tail pipe. You really need to look at carbon through the life cycle to be fair fair about IT, but you also look at energy efficiency. And um when I was doing I K of studies with the old tag and we were trying to pull together a lot of hydron studies, you the energy efficiencies were all over the map and most of them had an energy efficiency hit if you went to hydrogen because you're adding more volume and so more structure and more way even though the fuels lighter IT felt like a pretty aggressive goal would be that if you could maintain energy efficiency and use hydrogen and then you are winner. And so in the new table, there is a tougher goal with more fuel borne reduction if you're um using a drop in fuel versus maintaining the same kind of mid term level goal, if you're using something that's zero carbon, just scope the landscape out.

you know right? And and we've seen how you've changed sort of from gun, from feel burn, as you say, to basically like a border vehicle level energy consumption metric. And therefore, that's based on that kind of combination of so looking at range and aircrafts geometry and and all those factors. But what one of the other ones that I thought was interesting was the move to the M V P M, the non volatile particular matter aspect and and the way that this probably reflects the growing awareness of control emissions and the propulsion system being designed to, at least with that in mind.

It's it's that it's it's also one of the local air quality factors. And um it's also there have been changes in the cape standards um in the N V P M area in the lasts three or four years and so it's acknowledged of that.

Uh if you look back to the original in plus three, um there was a row for field blank because every time time that short take off and landing and so morphed over the years, we also use to have a cruise knocks um metric um and since there isn't technically a cruise knocks metric cape, now we took that out. But the M V P M is in there. And for the reason you say, you know I think time the controls time to local clear quality, it's it's relevant to put IT in there and you always keep noises in there and the noises go away.

Um and fuel burn, but a big difference on the fuel burn to energy consumption thing. So personally, I think when you anybody talks about fuel burn, um they really ought to be talking about energy consumption when you start mixing batteries and in hybrid um IT really is what's the energy you using and you really do have to track the life cycle to see where that energies is coming from to know whether you really made progress um but the big difference is rather than trying um energy consumption to a best in class or a specific airplane with the cape C O two standard that's weight based um we now have kind of a specific airplane agnostic metric. Um you you work against this line um but it's an energy efficiency, it's an energy metric. IT doesn't take into account the cleanliness of the fuel per say. So it's to chAllenging .

yeah agram any last thoughts from you .

before we wrap? I I just I don't I really just want to emphasize you know the importance of what came to be, the importance of one plus three. You know, IT started as a series of very interesting studies, but but IT has proved over time that IT, that IT IT mapped masses road map for the the years that followed.

You know, we have new a new generation of engines in development with with hybridization design in from the beginning, small core, very high bypass from ratio. We have the ability to go to very high rate composer efforts very quickly, which we need to do to renew the fleet quickly and get more trainable aircraft out quickly. We've got to build.

We gotta get to that sixty or seventy rate to a month rate quickly. We can't take years to get to sixty or something. We are going to get there quickly.

So we tackle this problem back to posits being very, very hard to make a higher tes. And then you've got the electrification, the hybrid c electric IT like flight demonstration part of IT. And not forget there's a bunch of stuff and air traffic inside is being done.

And then the exit to six, which we have no idea really what the impact the exit to six is. But IT puts on the table a possibility that boeing may make an architecture change for for a future airplane. And so we have to look at aces in that context and say, if IT works the way the enthuses three did IT, then there will be a road map that comes out of that.

Will guy drive whatever determine when to use NASA investment and industrial investment because na, eric doesn't do anything on its only IT does IT with an industry partnership, cost sharing everything. So IT, we'll rely out this map that will map out for U. S. Industry what this future pathway is. So we really need to understand now in the potential importance of these studies to to to set that out for to.

Thanks, great men, and thanks to you, rich and and also to asian keeping as a gainfully employed and excited and for inspiring hopefully the industry in the next generation. That's that's a rap for today's check six h. Don't forget to follow us in your podcast, apple choice.

And one last request. If you're listening to us in apple podcast and want to support this podcast, please leave us a star rating or right to review so by fan out. And thank you for listening.

College students qualify for free digital subscriptions to aviation week in space technology that includes access to our archive, a valuable resource that contains every issue back to one thousand nine hundred and sixteen to sign up, go to aviation weak dot comms lash student.