A New Range Equation for Hybrid Aircraft Design

Abstract

A new Range Equation for a hybrid-electric propeller-driven aircraft was formulated by an original derivation based on the comparison of Virtual Electrical Aircraft (VEA) and Virtual Thermal Aircraft (VTA) range equations. The new formulation makes it possible to study the range of a hybrid aircraft with pre-established values of electric motor usage rate. The fuel and battery mass are defined “a priori”, and do not depend on the power split, so even the aircraft’s total mass is constant. The comparison with the typical range formulas available for hybrid aircraft was made on the basis of a reference composite VLA category aircraft manufactured by the CFM Air company. The analysis carried out shows that there is an optimum hybridization level as a function of the pre-set specific energy of the batteries system.