Content Summary
BRITISH AIRWAYS CENTENARY YEAR - 08
We take a look into British Airway’s Centenary year. British Airway’s have managed 100 amazing years of taking the world to Britain and Britain to the world.
WEIRDEST LOOKING AIRCRAFTS - 11
We take a look at four of the weirdest looking aircrafts ever built. Ever seen a plane look like an Artic whale or a pair of designer shoes? Look no further.
ARMY ROBOTICS £66M BOOST - 13
A £66m boost of Defence funding has been fast tracked which will allow military robotic projects to get onto the battlefield this year. Exciting times to come.
The new space race is on with multiple companies competing to be the first to offer a solar vacation. Who are these companies? See here and read more on them.
Rolls-Royce takes major step towards electrifying flight
Rolls-Royce has taken a significant step
towards providing hybrid-electric
propulsion systems for the next
generation of aviation, with successful
ground tests of a hybrid system using
a M250 gas turbine, which is usually used
to power helicopters.
The firm successfully tested the hybrid
version of the M250 gas turbine in a
ground demonstration setting in three
operating modes: Series Hybrid, Parallel
Hybrid and Turbo-Electric. The M250 hybrid will be used as a propulsion plant with power ranging from 500kW to 1MW and Rolls-Royce says it has the potential to “transform aviation power”.
The system will be used across a range of transport platforms to enable distributed electric propulsion, including eVTOLs (electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles – in this case, hybrid electric), general aviation aircraft and hybrid helicopters.Rolls-Royce engineers based in the United States, UK and Singapore have developed the gas turbine engine into a hybrid-electric propulsion system. The M250 has powered more than 170 varieties of fixed-wing military, civilian aircraft and helicopters since its initial development.
With Electrification being one of the most exciting developments in aviation since the birth of the jumbo jet, it will be exciting to see how much further advanced the hybrid system can get. Rolls-Royce hope to push the system towards integration on aircraft and experimental flights by 2021.
2 | MANE AEROSPACE, DEFENCE & SPACE | APRIL 2019