Russia to start flight tests of hybrid aircraft engine in 2020

The flight tests of Russia’s hybrid aircraft engine will start in 2020, CEO of the Baranov Central Institute of Aircraft Motor-Building (TsIAM) Mikhail Gordin told TASS on Monday.

The hybrid powerplant implies that the propeller is rotated by the electric motor that can be powered both by a storage battery and a generator mounted on the shaft of a gas turbine or piston engine.

"After a cycle of trials on the TsIAM stands, the demonstration hybrid power plant will be tested on the flying laboratory. They are due to begin in 2020," he specified.

The TsIAM is the parent organization in the project of developing the hybrid powerplant, he said.

The institute earlier announced plans to design this type of the engine as part of the first stage of R&D work on powerplants for an electrically-driven plane. This stage should be concluded with the development of a flying laboratory with a 500kW experimental hybrid-electric powerplant.

In November 2018, General Director of the Zhukovsky Institute National Research Center Andrei Dutov announced plans to hold the first flight with the Russian hybrid aircraft engine in 2019.