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California-based Universal Hydrogen, one of the leading companies in the field of new hydrogen flights, has reached an important milestone.

The startup Universal Hydrogen, headed by former Airbus technical director Pavel Eremenko, announced the completion of the first flight of its hydrogen-electric demonstrator on March 2, 2023.

The jet, powered by a hydrogen fuel cell turboprop engine, took off from Moses Lake Airport in Washington State for a 15-minute flight during which it reached a maximum altitude of 3,500 feet - a little over a kilometer.

In flight, one of the two propellers of the aircraft was powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, and the other engine ran on conventional jet fuel.

"So it happened today... the first test flight of the world's largest hydrogen fuel cell airliner powered by green hydrogen. It was a very long, epic day," Eremenko wrote on Twitter on March 3.

The 40-seat aircraft was equipped with a tank with liquid hydrogen, which occupies part of the cabin space. During the flight, the pilots reduced the power of a conventional engine so that the aircraft performed part of the cruising stage almost entirely using a hydrogen-electric power plant.

This is not only the first flight of Universal Hydrogen, but also the largest hydrogen-electric aircraft that has flown to date, surpassing the previous record holder, a hybrid-electric aircraft from ZeroAvia, which made its first flight in January last year.

It is also the second largest aircraft ever to fly on hydrogen, after an experiment conducted by the Soviet Union in the 1980s with the Tupolev Tu-155 aircraft. Its first flight took place 35 years ago – on April 15, 1988. This is considered to be the world's first cryogenic fuel flight.

The first gas with which the creators of the Tu-155 began to work was hydrogen. After that, the plane managed to fly on liquefied natural gas. The passenger Tu-154 became the base for the experimental liner, which made only 70 flights.

Liquid hydrogen is an almost ideal environmentally friendly fuel that releases mainly water and a small amount of nitrogen oxides during combustion. In terms of calorific value, hydrogen is three times higher than traditional aviation kerosene. But at the same time, hydrogen is explosive, it can only be stored and transported in a liquid state at very low temperatures close to absolute zero (-273 ° C). And this is a serious problem. Therefore, in practice, with all its advantages, cryogenic aviation turned out to be not such a simple project.

As for Universal Hydrogen, it is working on a system of replaceable hydrogen capsules designed for installation in upgraded regional aircraft. Thus, the startup expects to eliminate one of the main obstacles that may hinder the introduction of hydrogen engines, namely, the lack of an established supply chain of hydrogen.

With the Universal Hydrogen system, operators can refuel by swapping pre-filled mobile containers that can be easily transported by road from the hydrogen production plant to the place where it will be used. This system can be compared to Nespresso coffee capsules.

Time will tell how, at what pace, on what technological bases the use of new types of energy sources in aviation will expand. There is still a lot to be done on the development of special onboard systems and in the field of ground infrastructure development.

Researchers may be wrong for decades, but oil reserves are likely to be exhausted at some point. Therefore, many countries, scientists and specialists are looking for effective solutions in the field of inexhaustible energy sources.

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Photo: hydrogen.aero; rostec.ru