« Hydrogen-powered transport aircraft consume less energy than their kerosene-fueled counterparts, regardless of the mission (from short-haul to long-haul flights). »
— D. Brewer, Hydrogen Aircraft Technology, 1991
Today, this claim is challenged by modern scientific literature and a thorough analysis of Brewer’s (NASA) work remains difficult to find.
Since January 2025, Romain JAN’s postdoctoral research aims to critically reassess these findings in light of current certification and aircraft design methodologies.
This project focuses on two main objectives:
– Reducing uncertainty in hydrogen aircraft modeling to enable a fair comparison of their energy performance with kerosene-powered aircraft, considering both conventional and disruptive architectures.
– Assessing the environmental performance of a hydrogen-powered fleet using AEROMAPS, a prospective scenario simulation tool developed at ISA.
Supervised by Professors Jean-Marc Moschetta and Christian Gogu (ISAE-SUPAERO), this research is conducted in collaboration with ENAC and funded by the Institute for Sustainable Aviation and the Rhyo Défi-Clef.
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Publication of a scientific article by Xavier Bonilla (TSE) and Marc Ivaldi (TSE) : « Banning short-haul domestic flights: a preliminary assessment for France »
On May 21, we will welcome Professor R.R.A. Martins, who will present how to shape sustainable aviation with multidisciplinary analysis and design optimization.
On November 19, ISA will be honoured
to welcome Nicolas Monrolin, researcher at ENAC, who will be speaking on « Local and global energy