Airbus tests hybrid engine

AIRBUS has teamed up with Rolls-Royce and Siemens to develop a hybrid electric engine.

The collaboration aims to have a part-electric test aircraft in the air by 2020, after ground-tests on a BAe 146 plane. One of the aircraft’s four gas turbine engines will be replaced by a two-megawatt electric motor, with plans to eventually replace a second one.

The companies hailed the development of the E-Fan X hybrid-electric technology demonstrator as “an important step in our goal of making electric flight a reality.”