An aeronautical historian, Jean-Marc Olivier is a professor at Toulouse-Jean-Jaurès University and coordinator of the Aero group at the Labex SMS laboratory. He notably published 1970. Airbus, birth of an industrial giant (Editions midi-pyrénéennes, 2020).
Is the decarbonization of air transport shaping up to be a historic shift?
Reflection on the fuels of the future is underway, at Airbus as in light aviation. Several avenues are explored, but some believe that it is better to continue to burn kerosene than to install batteries that are too heavy and have a limited lifespan in aircraft. Because some remedies might do more harm than good when it comes to CO2 emissions2.
To what major technological milestones of the past can we compare what is happening today?
In the 1930s, airliners were not able to cross the Atlantic. Airships were then developed. The German firm Zeppelin succeeded in flying the largest aerial vehicle in history between Europe and the United States, the LZ 129 Hindenburg, which was inflated with hydrogen. The adventure ended in a spectacular fire on landing in 1937.
Immediately following, there was a craze for the seaplane. It was a dream, but the aircraft were both bad planes and bad ships. Of the six giant Latécoère 631 seaplanes that crossed the Atlantic between 1945 and 1955, two crashed with passengers on board.
Everything changed with the Second World War…
War is often used to overcome technical milestones. During the conflict, the American manufacturer Douglas enjoyed phenomenal success with its DC-3, the most produced airliner in the world, which would become Air France’s medium-haul aircraft in the post-war period. It was also following 1945 that airlines opened routes over the Atlantic, with classic aircraft such as the Douglas DC-4, the Lockheed Constellation or the De Havilland Comet., first commercial aircraft powered by turbojet engines.
Hydrogen is now coming back to the fore. Does this sound serious to you?
The important thing is to properly measure the consequences. Hydrogen can be used in theory to fly planes. Except that it is extremely dangerous, for planes in flight and for airports which should store it on the ground.
The fuel cell might be the solution, using not hydrogen itself, but the energy that hydrogen can generate to produce electricity on board. The trouble is that it would take batteries three times lighter than they are now.
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