Electra has unveiled a turbo-electric airliner concept developed under NASA’s Advanced Aircraft Concepts for Environmental Sustainability (AACES) 2050 program, showing a future 100-plus-seat aircraft that uses a double-bubble fuselage and electrically driven tail fans.
The Manassas, Virginia-based company said the concept could deliver up to a 17% efficiency improvement beyond gains expected by 2050 from advances in structures, engines and aerodynamics.
The aircraft is a research concept intended to study how electrification, advanced aerodynamics and improved integration between the airframe and propulsion systems could shape future commercial aircraft.
The design uses a wide double-bubble fuselage, allowing the aircraft body to generate more lift, its maker says. Two underwing turbofan engines would provide thrust and also generate electricity for electric fans mounted near the tail.
Those tail fans would take in and re-energize slower-moving airflow over the fuselage, a technique known as boundary layer ingestion. The goal is to recover energy that would otherwise be lost in the aircraft’s wake.
“The value of electrification in this concept is that it lets us put the propulsion where it couldn’t go before but does the most good,” said Dr. Parker Vascik, Electra’s Director of Product Strategy. “We can radically improve how the airframe and propulsion system work together while keeping the aircraft grounded in real airline and airport operations.”
Electra said the concept is designed to fit within existing airport gates and airline operations. It would use standard jet fuel or sustainable aviation fuel and would not depend on airport charging infrastructure or new fuel types.
The configuration would also allow a twin-aisle cabin layout in an aircraft sized closer to a narrowbody, which Electra said could improve passenger comfort and speed boarding and deplaning.
The work was led by Dr. Alejandra Uranga, Electra’s Chief Engineer for Research and Future Concepts. Uranga previously co-led NASA-sponsored research at MIT on the double-bubble aircraft concept and the D8 aircraft design.
“This concept builds on years of research into how airframe shape and propulsion placement can work together to improve aircraft efficiency,” Uranga said. “What is different now is the ability to use electrification and distributed propulsion to more deeply integrate those systems.”
Electra also developed 11 technical papers as part of the study and adopted NASA’s open-source Aviary multidisciplinary design and optimization tool. The company said it created an electrified aircraft design suite intended for public use.
The AACES 2050 team included American Airlines, Honeywell Aerospace, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, Hinetics, MIT, the University of Michigan and the University of California, Irvine.
NASA’s AACES 2050 program is examining aircraft concepts and enabling technologies that could influence commercial aviation in the 2040s, 2050s and beyond. Electra’s study is one of several approaches being explored under the program, alongside work on advanced propulsion, alternative fuels and new aircraft architectures.
Electra CEO Marc Allen said the program gives industry a chance to look beyond incremental changes to current aircraft designs.
“Through AACES, NASA is pushing the industry to think boldly, to use our novel propulsion technologies to unconstrain design thinking for the next generation of commercial aviation,” Allen said.
Electra is also developing the EL9, a nine-passenger hybrid-electric ultra-short takeoff and landing aircraft. The company says that aircraft is aimed at direct regional operations from spaces far smaller than conventional runways.