March 26, 2026, © Leeham News: In our series on the state of alternative propulsion projects, we are looking at different hydrogen-fueled propulsion systems.
Hydrogen can be processed chemically in a fuel cell to produce electrical power, which is then coupled to an electrical propulsion system, such as in hybrids or battery-electric aircraft. The advantage is that the system eliminates inefficient batteries that kill these systems.
Figure 1. The 100-seat fuel cell airliner is now Airbus’ ZEROe alternative. Source: Airbus.
The other alternative is to burn hydrogen in a gas turbine’s combustor. The advantage is that we keep the high power-to-mass ratio of a gas turbine, but with a heavier, more complicated fuel system, and use a lighter fuel than Jet Fuel/SAF.
We first dive deeper into the fuel cell-based variant.
