SUGAR Volt: Boeing puts vision to work in hybrid electric aircraft
(Phys.org)—Boeing has been working on a project that signifies the future of commercial air transportation. As the story goes, about five years ago at a conference on advanced aircraft technologies, posing questions on what the future of aircraft would look like, somebody stood up and said, "What about an electric airplane?" Almost everyone laughed. Boeing personnel did not laugh. Can we make an airplane that has batteries that actually works? They took it as a challenge, in designing a commercial plane capable of low-emission flights. Marty Bradley, technical fellow with Boeing Research & Technology, and part of its SUGAR (Subsonic Ultra Green Aircraft Research) project, has been talking about the company's hybrid electric design, the SUGAR Volt, ever since.