Category: Research

Data Interpretation

More on that subject of number crunching. I’m not so much concerned about the numerous ways and means to produce reliable statistics as the ethical factors involved in their production.

Two things. One is the importance of saying truth to power and the other the importance of seeing things as they really are rather than how you or I would like them to be.

Starting with the first. If ever it was a hard day to say this but asserting truth is not one of several options, it’s the best option.

Whatever any short-term gains there are in distorting a description of a current situation, in the longer term the truth will out. Now, that may not have always been so. It’s often said that the victors write history. That famous view had some validity when literacy was not universal or when texts were chained in church libraries. Now, information speeds through the INTERNET (and whatever its successor will be). Controlling or supressing information has become like trying to build a castle out of sugar on a rainy day.

The second factor is more troublesome and, for that matter, more difficult. It could be the tug of war between subjectivity and objectivity. What we see is so much dependent upon the observer. What we hear is conditioned by what we’ve heard in the past.

I saw this often in the interpretation of a written narrative. Aviation accidents and incidents are reported. Databases full of multivarious reports of different origins siting there waiting to be read. This is a good thing.

It’s the choice of language that shapes our understanding of past events. That can be voluminous and contradictory. It can be minimalist and ambiguous. It can have peculiar expressions or fuzzy translations. Even if reporters are asked to codify their observations, with a tick box, there remains wide margins.

The writer of a story often knows what they want to say. It might be obvious to them what happened at the time of writing. Then it’s the reader who takes that up. A text could be read years later. Read by many others. Similar stories may exist, all written up differently. Hopefully, slight variations.

Seeing things as they really are, rather than how you would like them to be, without bias, requires more than a degree of care. A great deal of care.

It’s hard enough for an enlightened and skilled analysist to take a sentence and say “yes” I know exactly what happened. Not just what but all six of these – who, what, were, when, how and why. In future, the artificial intelligence tools that get used by authorities will have the same challenge.

For all our technological wonders, it’s the writers of reports that shapes our understanding. From a couple of sentences to a massive dissertation.

Try telling that to a maintenance engineer whose last job of the day, before going home, is to file an occurrence report after a terrible day at work. In a damp hanger with a job only half done. Tomorrow’s troubles looming.

POST: Rt Rev Nick Baines and his Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4 is thinking the same this morning. Truth is truth. In his case it’s Christian truth that he has in mind. There lies another discussion.

Exploration and Innovation

Is there a human on the planet who has never seen the Moon? I guess, there must be a small number. The Earth’s satellite comes and goes from the night sky. Its constancy can’t be denied. Lighting the way when it’s full.

Accurate measurements say that the Moon is drifting away from us. The pace is nothing to be concerned about. It’s not going to become a free flying object careering across the universe. Space 1999[1] is pure fiction. Let’s face it we haven’t even got a working Moon Base here in 2025.

What motivated humans to go to the Moon in the 1960s? The simplest answer is the explorer’s quote: because it’s there. A quote that can be applied to any difficult journey that’s being taken for the first time. It implies a human longing to explore. An insatiable desire to go where no one has gone before. That’s nice, only it’s a partial story.

Technology accelerated in the post-war era as science and engineering built upon the discoveries and inventions that conflict drove. Then the promise of peace dissolved into the Cold War. Sides arranged in immoveable ideological opposition. The technological race was on. Intense competition drove the need to be display global superiority.

Potentially destructive forces were, for once, channeled into a civil project of enormous size. The Apollo missions. The aims and objectives of which were “civil” in nature, however the resulting innovations had universal applications. Companies that made fighter jets and missiles turned their hands to space vehicles. Early rockets were adaptations of intercontinental missiles.

1969’s moon landing put down a marker in history that will be talked of in a thousand years. Putting humans on the Moon for the first time is one of the ultimate firsts. That first “small step for man” may be as important as the first Homo sapiens stepping out of Africa. A signpost pointed to what was possible.

More than five decades have gone by. Instead of looking up to the heavens we now look down to our mobile phones. Rather than applying our intelligence to exploration we strive to make machines that can surpass us. Of course this is not a true characterisation. Exploration has merely taken a different a direction.

Will humans step into the final frontier again? Yes, but not as the number one priority. Plans to return to the Moon exist. It’s the intense competition that drove the Apollo missions that is missing. The advantage of being first to establish a working Moon Base is not so overwhelming. Even this base as a stepping stone to the planet Mars is viewed as a longer term ambition.

One advantage of this century over the last is the advances in automation and robotics that have become commonplace. Modern humans don’t need to do everything with our hands. Complex machines can do much of the work that needs to be done. Footsteps on another planet can wait a while.

Enough of us continue to be amazed and inspired by space exploration. The challenge is not to achieve one goal. It’s to achieve many.

POST: I watched Capricorn One, the 1970s movie about a fake Mars mission. It could do with a remake. In many ways it is easier to fake now than it was with film and colour televisions the size of washing machines.

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072564/

Discovering Tomorrow

Daily writing prompt
What are you most excited about for the future?
View all responses

As an engineering guy who’s made a living out of technology (mostly aerospace) you may think that I’d pipe-up with the super shiny stuff that fills the pages of WIRED[1]. I know that’s a media brand but it’s a mighty strange name in a time when traditional wiring is falling out of fashion. My high-speed INTERNET gets to me by light.

Technology is an enabler. It’s not the answer. I’m not going to get terribly excited about “1” and “0” or even qubits[2]. Technology is a means to an end. Yes, it is transformative. We are where we are because of it. Technology opens possibilities.

I’m excited about ideas. It will be a light blub moment or years of hard work that will bring about the step changes that may make life in the future unrecognisable from today. Being a glass is half full thinker, I’m excited about how the human imagination will flourish in the future. I don’t see a dark sky and a dystopia of brainy robots marshalling us around. Even with our accumulated knowledge we are mostly ignorant about how the universe works. Be excited about the future because there’s so much to discover.

[1] https://www.wired.com/

[2] https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/quantum-computing

Probabilistic Predictions

Uncertainty is the only certainty. Not a radical statement. As long as I live, dealing with uncertainty is inevitable. Unavoidable everywhere. I wouldn’t have it any other way, even if it can be uncomfortable.

Prominent Ancient Greeks may have travelled to Delphi for advice as to what the future may hold. There’re those three enigmatic witches who warn Macbeth of his fate. History and fiction are littered with references.

For me, I can pick-up a newspaper and look for a daily astrological prediction. One I like. I can flick around social media and see more prophecies than ever. Mostly gibberish. There are those convinced of their foresight.

Despite a cynical disposition towards the above, science can be applied to the world of uncertainty. Generally, the proposition is that an element of the past and present will be reproduced in the future. This is not absolute. However, human engineered systems tend to behave with a degree of predictability.

Empirical methods, where society collects data from the past and present, can be useful in trying to forecast what may happen next. The more deterministic the systems under study, the more useful acquired data can be. For these, forecasting challenges mount for the new, novel, or radically altered.

I’m writing this given the interest there is in probabilistic safety. There are figures that hit the headlines that are almost incompressible. If the rationale behind the numbers is not clear then incorrect assumptions result. Tiny numbers from 1 x 10-6 to 1 x 10-9 are quoted in the News (SI Units). What do they mean? Let’s start with simple probability.

If an occurrence is certain then a numerical value of “1” can be given to it.

Absolute certainty is a rare thing. I can say that the Sun will rise tomorrow, and most people will take that as a statement of certainty. Intriguingly there’s the most incredibly improbable case where the solar system is thrown into instability and the Sunrise isn’t as expected.

If an occurrence never happens then a numerical value of “0” can be given to it.

Absolute impossibility is only possible with absolute knowledge. So, again it’s rare. I can say that human time-travel, to and from the distant past, is only fiction to next discover that a way has been found.

Let’s say we live in a world where the probability of occurrences ranges from the 0.99999, with ever more “9s”, to a number as small as 1 x 10-30[1]. A quecto.

These extreme numbers are nice for physicists and astronomers to play with, but they are outside normal engineering practices. As yet, we do not have the means to operate at the level of these limits. Time will tell. Or I maybe wrong.

By the way, I used the word “occurrence” above to denote anything that can happen in an instant. When talking about undesirable happenings, that can mean an incident, accident, mishap, slip, failure, or error. Each of these has a definition. Often more than one.

Next. I’ll go back to the tiny numbers more commonly quoted.

POST: For extraordinary numbers we need look no further than the nimble electron. So far, the best measurement for the life of an electron suggests that one now will still be around in 66,000 yottayears (6.6 × 1028 yrs). That’s about 5-quintillion times the current age of our universe. 

[1] https://www.nist.gov/pml/owm/metric-si-prefixes

Avoiding Contrails and Enhancing Operations

Here I’m expanding on my earlier words on aircraft Contrails.

Airspace is a busy place. It’s most busy over Europe and the US. Over the oceans there’s more room, although on certain routes, like the North Atlantic, there’s plenty of daily air traffic.

Those who manage the airspace are primarily concerned with ensuring that aircraft collisions do not occur. The impact of mid-air collisions is devastating. There’re few people in aviation who can forget the events of an evening in July 2002. Over Überlingen, Germany[1], 71 people lost their lives at a time when the sky was not busy at all.

Managing the use of airspace is more than collision avoidance. Flying is perpetually concerned with the weather. What’s it doing, how is it changing and is it a hazard? It’s not just the safety of flying that demands up-to-date meteorological information. Knowing about the winds can enable more efficient operations, and that’s less fuel use for a given route.

Large thunderstorms need to be avoided. Regions of the world (example: intertropical convergence zone) make this a dynamic challenge. Manoeuvres may be planned but flight crews must be ready to act based on the information they have, like weather radar.

Turbulence is another phenomenon to be avoided, if possible. This can occur in clear air. It can be difficult to detect. Which explains the unpleasant examples that hit the News now and then[2].

Back in 2010, aviation had a reminder that avoidance encompassed any hazardous airspace. That was when an unpronounceable volcano in Iceland was spewing out ash at high altitudes. Plumes of volcanic ash, if ingested into aircraft engines, can cause major difficulties.

I’ve written these words to emphasise that the avoidance of contrail formation cannot be done as a stand-along consideration. It becomes one factor in a whole mix of factors.

Avoidance of contrail formation is about considering the mechanism that cause them to form. Clearly, the warmer the air is the harder it is for a contrail to form. The more humidity there is in the air, the easier it is for a contrail to form. Outside Air Temperature (OAT) and atmospheric humidity vary at each altitude. That relationship interacts with the aircraft inflight, and the outcome may be different for each aircraft type.

At least one academic study[3] says that adjustments of aircraft altitude of around 2000 ft could have a useful effect on contrail formation. That’s good to know but let’s not forget that Reduced Vertical Separation Minima (RVSM) [4] means a vertical spacing of 1000 ft in busy airspace.

My take on this fascinating subject is that there both a tactical and operational approach that can be practically taken by aviation.

At the tactical level, airlines can factor contrail avoidance into flight planning. Creating an algorithm that will weigh all the relevant flight factors. Improved sources of accurate and timely meteorological data and predictions will be needed.

At the operational level, it’s down to the flight crews to take advantage of environmental conditions as the opportunity arises. Much as dealing with turbulence, that is when safety and operational rules permit. To change altitude when its beneficial, computational help is likely to be needed. Over the ocean, air-ground communications systems may need to be further improved. An altitude change that avoids contrail formation but increases fuel consumption would not be a sustainable solution.

These computational tasks may well be well suited to machine learning. A useful application of artificial intelligence. I can imagine a cockpit weather radar display with a new set of symbology that indicates a low probability contrail formation zone ahead.

[Back in the 1990s, I worked on RVSM when the ARINC organisation was creating international standards. Safely increasing traffic in the North Atlantic region. Additionally, I participated in the certification of Future Air Navigation System (FANS) 1/A for use over the ocean. FANS led to more efficient aircraft operation due to shorter flying times and decreased fuel burn.]

POST: Looks like data crunching is underway Flight plans, but greener: The ICCT and Google’s mission to refine the Travel Impact Model – International Council on Clean Transportation

[1] https://www.bfu-web.de/EN/Publications/FinalReports/2002/Report_02_AX001-1-2_Ueberlingen_Report.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=1

[2] https://www.flightglobal.com/safety/turkish-777-rapidly-descended-during-crews-aggressive-response-to-turbulence-encounter/162937.article

[3] https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/195294/small-altitude-changes-could-contrail-impact/

[4] https://skybrary.aero/articles/reduced-vertical-separation-minima-rvsm

Understanding Contrails

Crisscrossing the sky, as I look up on a clear day, there are civil aircraft going about their business. People travelling across the Atlantic or coming back or on a day trip to Glasgow.

These shiny pinpoints of light in motion, set against a blue sky, are all the more visible because of the vapour trails they leave behind. Aircraft speed through the rarified atmosphere to leave a momentary trail as evidence of their presence.

Up with the aircraft in flight are natural clouds. Up at 30,000 feet there can be Cirrus clouds[1]. There might not be much air pressure at that altitude but there’s enough moisture to support cloud formation. The word “wispy” sums them up.

Aircraft create condensation trails that are known as contrails. How the English language likes to shorten. They are not mysterious or generate with evil intent in mind. It’s simple physics.

In my bathroom, with hot water gushing from the shower, moisture is the air. When that moist air meets a cold surface, like a window, condensation is sure to be seen. Airbourne it’s not so different. Hot emissions from powerful jet engines shooting out into a cold low-pressure environment and guess what?

Typically, contrails don’t last long. If there’s appreciable wind at high altitude, then they get dispersed quickly. Not only that but the icy temperatures up there soon return things to the status-quo. There are days, when the air is still, that the sky can become a crisscross of contrails where dispersion is more like a gentle merging.

The theory goes that the cumulative impact of lots of high-altitude flying is like the impact of additional cloud formation. It’s water vapour after all. It’s known, high altitude clouds can contribute to the greenhouse effect.

The point I’m getting to here is that lots of flying contributes to climate change. Primarily because of the burning of significant amounts of fossil fuel. As a secondary consideration there’s the issue of contrails across the globe.

This leads to the question – can their formation be avoided? Even, is there something useful to be gained in doing so. Trials and research are trying to establish the answer to these questions[2].

Initially, contrail avoidance sounds like it should be relatively easy to do. However, like so many good proposals it’s not so easy. Change needs to involve air traffic management, flight operations and international regulators.

First the atmospheric conditions need to be detected or predicted in a given location and then an avoidance needs to be planned and undertaken in coordination with everyone flying at high altitude at a given time. Lost of data to crunch.

It’s possible, in oceanic airspace, a dynamic aircraft system could perform this avoidance function. It would be an interesting design challenge for an avionics company to take up.

#Net Zero #SustainableAviation

[1] https://weather.metoffice.gov.uk/learn-about/weather/types-of-weather/clouds/high-clouds/cirrus

[2] https://news.aa.com/esg/climate-change/contrail-avoidance/

Sustainable Aviation: Innovations and Challenges

Gas guzzling continues to be one of aviation’s problems. Combustion remains that the heart of most aircraft power plants. Taking large amounts of fossil fuel. Squeezing energy out of every drop of gasoline. Gobbling up more day after day. Pushing out emissions.

As I look out across the garden, I see gliding effortlessly as the warm air rises, a Red Kite[1] gracefully circling. Wings outstretched they hardly move them as they climb. They’re a distinctive small bird of prey, easily spotted because of their forked tail. Now, that’s what I call efficient flying. Using all that nature provides and wasting little energy.

Human attempts at flying are a million miles behind these magnificent birds. There’s still so much to learn about aerial navigation. It’s a matter of control. The sensing of ambient conditions and the precision movements needed to ascend and dive at will.

The search is on for effective change. There’s no pretence that the way commercial aviation operates is unsustainable. It’s true that the gas guzzlers of the air guzzle less gas now than they ever have but the physical facts remain.

None of this is new. I’m about to send a book called “Towards Sustainable Aviation” to a charity shop. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with it. The book is full of pertinent analysis and observations. Trouble is that it’s dated 2003.

I’m led to ask – what’s changed in over 20-years? In answering my own question – quite a lot but not enough. Discourse has moved on from academic quarters to the political sphere. Aircraft have become more fuel efficient. Driven by economic imperatives as much as any concern for the climate. Research initiatives are generously funded to come up with answers. Solutions like hydrogen, electric propulsion, and SAF (sustainable aviation fuel) are slowly moving from theory to practice. A few prototypes are flying. Limited supplies of SAF are flowing.

Unmistakable that’s where the problem lies. For all the hype, policy and government funding the pathway to genuinely sustainable aviation disappears way off into the horizon. There are setbacks too. Gas guzzling is back in fashion. Certainly, in Trump’s America.

We could make a much more of the technology that’s currently available. Yes, there are costs involved. Change is not a free ride. That said, sticking with the status-quo isn’t free either. Legacy costs mount up. One reason why older jets disappeared from fleets so quickly.

The next generation of commercial aircraft must make major steps forward. Since the life of a typical aircraft type can easily extend to 30-years, then change must happen in design now.

Typically, commercial aviation moves with graduated change. There’s an inherent conservatism in the system, as might be expected when safety and security are paramount. Facing this global challenge, there’s a need for a degree more radicalism.

Since high impact disruption is also in fashion, it’s time for airlines and manufacturers to adopt a pioneering spirt. It’s been done before. In the 1960s, that pioneering spirt gave us the Boeing 747, the Jumbo jet. That opened flying to a whole generation.

[1] https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/red-kite

Revolution: Hype vs Reality

Talk is of a revolution[1]. That sounds sensational. It sounds like marketing talk aimed at creating an insatiable desire for something new. So, that kind of talk immediately switches on the cynical side of my brain. Is this hype or is it real?

We’ve had plenty of both in my lifetime. Colourful boys adventure books with novelties like nuclear powered aircraft and moonbase vacations. It’s not that “flying a kite” is entirely bad. Those imaginings of the future had pictures of prototype flying cars. Now, we maybe on the verge of that prediction becoming real.

AI is not new. It’s been a research subject for decades. What we have most recently is the coming together of concepts and the practical machines on which to run those concepts. Amazing has been the speed of progress. That’s a modest word considering the sudden adoption of new tools that go way beyond simple INTERNET search engines.

Bill Hunter’s line: “You can’t stop progress”. At least that’s the line I remember of the 1994 film Muriel’s Wedding[2]. It was said on a rocky path to “progress” induced disaster.

My curiosity centres around avoiding the hype and finding out what’s real. That’s in the vain hope that I might not be left behind in this rapid surge of “progress”. So, to keep up with the latest technical developments I clicked on a TED App. The boss of TED, Chris Anderson has recently interviewed Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI[3]. He’s the guy behind ChatGPT. AI has elevated new people into the spotlight. It’s given established technology companies a headache. Their desire to be in the pack, or leading the pack is mighty strong.

My takeaways form this interview are that AI will outpace human intelligence, in time. No one knows how much time, but the path is set. The direction of travel isn’t in the control of traditional institutions or government departments. Society must get its head around a time when we live with machines that out pace us.

Second, it would be nice to have an enlightened global regulator to ensure that the massive amount of development going on produces outcomes that are for the public good. Chances of that happening are about zero, although not zero. There’s even a possibility that the industry at work on this technology realises the need for a set of enforceable rules.

Questions of safety are paramount. Even though society debated the impact that the INTERNET would have on us, steps to provide protections and boundaries only came about after the event. Lost in a storage box, I once had a book called “The Sleeping Sentinels”. Basically, the thought was that political parties and the legal profession are always more than ten steps behind the technologists. We are highly reactive.

One interesting aspect of the interview was the pauses. What was evident is that it’s hard to find the right language to describe what’s happening. Walking a tight rope between sounding like Chicken Little[4] and a wise respected elderly professor. Revolution is the right word.

POST: It’s not just IT Why AI Demands a New Breed of Leaders

[1] https://youtu.be/Xv8FBjo1Y8I

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLDcevp5w5o

[3] https://www.ted.com/talks/sam_altman_openai_s_sam_altman_talks_chatgpt_ai_agents_and_superintelligence_live_at_ted2025

[4] https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/chicken_little

Transform of Future Careers

My education was an industrial one. I guess I was fortunate. No “A” levels for me.

Part of my apprentice programme was to move around the different departments of a major electronics company. That included a range from demanding technical areas, testing new designs, to the everyday pressure of a print room run by an ex-Army man who ran it as if he’d never left the Army. Yes, print rooms were once a staple part of an engineering company. Huge dyeline machines that constantly ponged of ammonia twinned with the noisiest dot-matrix printers ever made. I even got to learn some COBAL[1] with the business unit that put together our payslips. Amazingly enough I was introduced to mathematical concepts, like Fast Fourier Transforms (FFT), at a time when the digital logic needed to implement such algorithms consisted of large cabinet loads of discrete electronics. Now, my simple mobile phone can crunch numbers in this way.

Several weeks here, and several weeks there. One excursion meant spending hot summer days in the Mendip Hills at a quarry testing equipment in deep water. Another meant time working in a former brick-built railway shed that served as a small machine shop.

Of all the different experiences that I had in those formative years (16-18 years) the one that I’ll never forget was a secondment to a London based factory. The company’s training officer recognised that this small village country boy needed to go to the big city. Uppark Drive, Ilford no longer exists as a manufacturing plant. That’s no surprise. In the late 1970s that factory handled the company’s long-lived products. Technology that has gone forever.

Anyway, this is not so much about me. What I’m led to speculate about is what sort of modern-day engineering apprenticeship offers. Does it offer the variety of experiences that I had? Is industrial sponsorship as generous and altruistic as it once was? Do industry and government work hand in hand to ensure a future workforce has the skills that are needed?

Simply the answer is probably “no”. In fact, the structure and organisation of design and manufacturing organisations has changed dramatically. In aerospace there are some companies that have a major factory with every facility at their heart but most subcontract extensively. Colleges have been turned into educational shops, paid by student numbers.

Here’s a thought. It’s not so much what’s taught that’s key as much as the exposure to a variety of ways of thinking and working. A variety of exposure give a student a toolbox from which they can then draw. Finding interesting work will depend on adaptation and repurposing past skills. That’ll be the only way to assure the world doesn’t pass by at an ever-increasing pace.

I’m sure that advances in artificial intelligence (AI) will affect everyone[2]. The idea that all AI will do is displace people is wrong. It just means that, like my recollections above, the types of activities that needs to be done will be entirely different in 2065. Unless I’m highly unusual, I will be long gone. But if you are 25 years old this is worth a thought.

[1] https://archive.org/details/historyofprogram0000hist/page/n7/mode/2up

[2] https://nap.nationalacademies.org/download/27644#

The Revolutionary Role of Hydrogen

Hydrogen has a history with aviation. What could be better. A gas that is so light. So easily produced and with no need heat it up. With a lightweight gas-tight bag and a fair amount of rope, balloon construction took-off. Literally. The proof that hydrogen gas could lift a balloon goes back to the 1780s in France.

Sadly, the downside of this gaseous element is its propensity to combine with other elements. In fact, where would we be without liquid water. On this planet, that most basic and prolific combination of hydrogen and oxygen. Not so much sadly but more luckily.

Step forward about 250 years and we have a different vision for hydrogen in aviation. If it’s combined with the oxygen in the air that we breath, we get nothing more noxious than water. Since, the other forms of combustion, that populate our everyday lives, is distinctly noxious, surely hydrogen has a lot to offer. Talk about downsides. Burning fossil fuels is distinctly unsustainable. Polluting the atmosphere.

This week, I was looking out to sea. At the English Channel (No name changes there, I see). Standing on the pebble beach at Budleigh Salterton. They ought to have an award just for that name. It’s a small seaside town in Devon. The towns cliffs are part of a World Heritage Site, namely The Jurassic Coast[1]. 

Forget the 250 years of humans flying, cited above. About 185 million years of the Earth’s history is for all to see on the Devon and Dorset coast. When we say “fossil fuels” what we mean is that we are living off the back of Earth’s history. Society powers modern life on dinosaur juice. Well, not exactly but plant and animal life from hundreds of millions of years ago. How crazy is that?

Hydrogen, on the other hand, is one of the most abundant elements. It’s everywhere.

Modern day dinosaurs (politicians and pundits) insist that we continue to exploit dinosaur juice until it’s all gone. That’s putting aside any concerns about returning all that carbon to the Earth’s atmosphere. Carbon accumulated over millions of years.

Hydrogen can be a clean fuel. The problem is that saying that and then doing it are two different things. There are complexities that come with using Hydrogen as a fuel. It might be reasonably easy to produce, in multiple different ways, but it’s not so easy to transport.

Producing leak proof systems for transport and storage requires innovative thinking. We can’t just treat it with the familiarity of conventional fuels. Whole new regimes are going to be needed to get Hydrogen from where it’s produced to where it’s needed.

Producing leak proof systems for aircraft is a challenge. Given the odourless and invisible nature of this light gas, accurate and extensive detection systems are going to be needed. If the gas is to be consumed by fuel cells to produce electricity, then there’s going to be a constant struggle against complexity and significant expenditures.

What is reassuring is that none of the above is insolvable. At this time in history, we have the materials technology and control systems that make Hydrogen a viable clean fuel.

[1] https://jurassiccoast.org/