The H3PS starts in a completely new, challenging and probably never seen before revolution in General Aviation (GA). The main driver behind the H3PS project is to develop a new, greener propulsion system (a parallel hybrid powertrain) to pioneer one of the aviation industry’s solutions in reducing the environmental impact of air travel. The propulsion system to be designed and developed within the project will be suitable for powering four-seat GA aircraft, a market segment which employs today piston-powered engines, where the leading engine manufacturers are providing components whose basic technology, although constantly updated and reliable, is now over 50 years old and, in most cases, still needs leaded fuels to operate. The objective of the project is to put the basis for the development, manufacturing and in-flight test of a parallel hybrid powertrain for General Aviation by the involvement of three European GA market leaders: an aircraft manufacturer (TECNAM), an aircraft engines manufacturer (ROTAX) and an electric motors manufacturer (Rolls-Royce). The H3PS project objective is to fly a GA aircraft with the parallel hybrid powertrain demonstrating the challenging advantages of the configuration but also its high scalability level. “Breakthrough” concept will be achieved by demonstrating the feasibility of a power scalability for up to 11 seats airplanes. The main impact of the project will be related to the introduction of a really marketable solution to bring GA in the hybrid vehicles arena. Hybrid solution is today the most realistic intermediate way to step from gasoline operated powerplants to full electric systems offering the same performances, comparable initial acquisition costs and weights but featuring a more-than-acceptable cost saving in operations. The H3PS project will contribute to the main EU challenges in transportation sector, particularly leadership position of its aeronautics industry and reliable and sustainable air transport system.

Electric Innovative Commuter Aircraft The ELICA research project activities are focused on the conceptual design of a 19 passengers commuter aircraft based on alternative propulsion concepts, targeting near-zero CO2 emissions. The project aligns with the environmental expectations of the European Commission towards the aeronautical industry formulated in Flightpath 2050 , and is in line with the economic objectives of the European Commission to safeguard high-quality jobs in the aerospace sectors by strengthening the technological leadership and the competitiveness of the European’s aerospace industry. The high-level objective of ELICA is to provide a concept design of a 19 passenger commuter aircraft with new zero-emissions with respect to CO2, NOx, and noise. The concept should be: • environmentally friendly, i.e. with measurable reduction in estimated emission values; • economically feasible, i.e. the aircraft requirements are derived from the market demands; • and technologically innovative, i.e. the flexibility in the aircraft design space provided by new propulsion technologies should be explored and exploited. The final concept design will pave the way to an innovative aircraft demonstrator. It will be an important step stone to strengthen the technology leadership of the European aeronautical industry, in the global race for the next-generation efficient commuter aircraft for regional mobility.

Climate-neutral aviation will require the use of alternative fuels such as Green Hydrogen and Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) combined with the power density of an ultra-efficient gas turbine engine for the Short and Medium Range (SMR) aircraft market which corresponds to approximately 50% of the current share of air transport emissions. Rolls-Royce (represented within the HEAVEN project by RR-UK & RR-D) supported by key UK and European academia, industry and research centres are currently developing a new generation of very high bypass ratio geared engine architecture called UltraFan® which was started in 2014. From the beginning this ducted engine architecture has been designed to be scalable and meet the needs both of widebody and SMR markets. To achieve the necessary 20% fuel burn reduction Rolls-Royce proposes to significantly evolve the UltraFan design. The evolved engine architecture design will take the next steps in improving the efficiency of the gas turbine, take advantage of the properties of net zero carbon fuels such as Hydrogen to improve efficiency, combining this with Hybrid electric technology to reduce wasted energy. Numerous innovative enabling technologies already at TRL3 will be incorporated into this new architecture to improve the gas turbine efficiency. Together with work on Hydrogen in CAVENDISH (HRA-01) and Hybrid Electric in HE-ART (HER-01) Clean Aviation projects in conjunction with activities in national and regional programmes, this will be synergistically combined to validate up to TRL6 the highly innovative UltraFan design to support a 2035 EIS. HEAVEN brings together a highly specialised European industrial and academic consortium already strongly involved and familiar with the UltraFan programme. Additionally, the partner easyJet, European airline operator who have the largest fleet of European manufactured SMR aircraft operating in Europe, will bring an in depth knowledge of operational requirements and impact in this market.