May 6, 2026, © Leeham News: In our series on the state of alternative propulsion projects, we are looking at different hydrogen-fueled propulsion systems.
Hydrogen can either be processed chemically in a fuel cell to produce electrical power, which is then coupled to an electrical motor system, like for hybrids or battery electric aircraft. The advantage is that the system gets rid of the inefficient batteries that kill these systems.
The other alternative is to burn the hydrogen in the combustor of a gas turbine. The advantage is we keep the high power to mass ratio of a gas turbine with a heavier and more complicated fuel system, but a lighter fuel than Jet Fuel/SAF.
Figure 1. The hydrogen-burn airliner in Airbus’ ZEROe concepts. Source: Airbus.
Now we dive deeper into the gas turbine hydrogen burn variant.
