Net-zero flight up in the air? GKN Aerospace is working at pace

The Global Technology Centre in Bristol cost a cool £32m. It’s a hefty sum, but it’s seen as an investment in the future. Not just in the future of GKN Aerospace, but in the sector as a whole. This was a joint investment from GKN, the UK government and the Aerospace Technology Institute.

It’s one of four across the GKN Aerospace group; the others located in Sweden, the Netherlands and the US. The GTC looks like how you would expect a centre for innovation to look. For a start it’s huge. Spanning a total of 10,000m2, this ‘open access’ collaborative R&D centre welcomes universities, research and technology organisations, catapults, government organisations and industrial partners.

Additionally, since opening in October 2021, it has provided support to start-ups and SMEs. It’s been said before that manufacturing’s biggest achievements will continue to come through fostering collaboration. That’s the nature of the GTC; it’s an environment where 300 engineers are combining the capabilities of GKN with the wider UK and international aerospace ecosystem. Its goal is advancing aerospace understanding and achieving the industry’s short and long-term goals.

The GTC was a £32m joint investment from GKN, the UK government and the Aerospace Technology Institute

Growing green wings

Straight to the elephant in the room though, and a point that I tend to head directly to whenever covering a story on aerospace. How do you make planes a sustainable form of transport? Air transportation is believed to have been responsible for four per cent of human-caused global warming to date, according to Statista.

Therefore, getting on a plane is one of the most carbon intensive activities you can do. In addition, the number of people using planes has seen a steady upward trajectory since the 1960s. There was a dip between 2020 and 2022, for obvious reasons.

But flying numbers are projected to hit pre-pandemic levels this year. Aerospace faces the challenge that, simply put, it’s a complex product. Making aircraft sustainable – particularly passenger and freight aircraft – is really difficult. David Brodie is the Head of Ecosystem at the GTC and, as he puts it, we’ll need to be patient.

“If you’re an investor you need to accept that the payback on this will take time; this is a huge challenge that we’re undertaking,” he said. “When it comes to certification bodies, we have to work to get them to trust us and the technologies that will move us forward. Aerospace is one of the safest forms of transport, but it’s also one of the most complex.”

“Progress has been slow then?” I asked David.

“I think outwardly, it probably looks that way,” he replied. “But I can assure you that the changes we’ve made recently have been significant. It may not be so prevalent in terms of exhaust emissions, but we’re really trying to make our sites and facilities a lot more sustainable, whether it be solar panels on the roof, the use of different materials, or processes like lean and efficient energy systems.”

I took David’s point; this is progression that’s happening a little bit behind closed doors. It’s not something you would know unless you visited a manufacturing facility – as we often hear ourselves saying. Projects such as Airbus’s SusWingS development programme is a good example.

This is a collaboration between Airbus, GKN, Cranfield University and the University of Sheffield. It’s a £15m project dedicated to creating high-performance wings and environmentally conscious manufacturing processes. The SusWingS programme builds on the technologies developed in the Wing of Tomorrow suite of projects and introduces innovative advancements in carbon fibre composite materials as well as state of-the-art numerical analysis models for predicting structural behaviour.

Projects like this represent the change that David spoke about. But still, as complex and innovative as it may be from a design perspective, it’s not the hard part. If the eventual aim is to build a whole new generation of planes producing no emissions at all, how long will that take?

“What about reducing emissions at the pipe?” I asked.

“This is what will take time,” said David. “There is significant investment going into battery and hydrogen technology and trials and advancements in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). There are challenges with every option, but the work in this space continues – it’s something we’re really passionate about.”

It’s telling that the great inventors of this world are yet to attempt decarbonising aerospace. Whatever you might make of his recent political exploits, Elon Musk has led pioneering strides with the likes of Space X and Tesla. He hasn’t gone near clean air travel – because it’s really hard. And as you would expect, it’s manufacturers who are currently working on the solutions. The target for the aerospace sector is still net zero by 2050, at the time of writing.

Sustainable skills

Another challenging aspect is that the expertise required is complex and niche. Those with skills and knowledge on hydrogen cryogenics and electronic systems are needed. GKN has always been able to get people into the industry and aerospace is one of the more attractive sectors of manufacturing.

The greater concern for John Watton, Technical Capability Director, however, is attaining the sustainability and digital skills needed in the future. “We do not have a pipeline,” he said. “That’s clear and obvious across our sector and wider manufacturing. In the not too distant future we’ll start seeing the emergence of advanced air mobility, hydrogen propulsion or hydrogen and electric hybrid propulsion aircraft, and the next generation single aisle.”

He continued: “Let me be clear, I don’t see these future platforms as challenges – they’re opportunities. But they’re coming our way very quickly. And if we’re to meet them and make the UK more productive, we need a lot more people with digital and hydrogen cryogenic skills at various proficiency levels.”

At the GTC in Bristol, GKN invests in training and skills for the future. Its on-site training centre is home to students of Western College, who provide a huge number of courses tailored to GKN’s skills pipeline. “We’ve got a voice there,” added David. “We can steer some of those courses and ensure the content and the learning matches the required skills that we’re looking for.”

He continued: “This is also crucial when it comes to building on collaboration with other organisations – it enables them to tap into the wider ecosystem and skills base.” At the GTC, GKN has engaged with around 1,500 students in the last year. These young people have, “had their heads turned,” as David put it. They’ve been shown the opportunities and innovations that exist within the aerospace sector, and are excited by it.

Its intake of young people and graduates will grow as it moves through technology development phases. The aim being that young recruits will be introduced to the likes of hydrogen propulsion and composite or additive manufacturing. This will be implemented into the production environment, so GKN will need those skills at the GTC to continue to build and develop those technologies.

“However, it’s our manufacturing sites that will need to change with regard to the types of skills required,” said John. “We need to move away from manual processes to robotics and more automated assembly processes going forwards. That’s where the skills challenges will lie.”

Shall we fly back to my place?

As reported by The Manufacturer at the start of the year, ‘flying taxis’ may soon be a reality. Vertical Aerospace is a start-up company that works out of the GTC in Bristol. The goal is to create an aircraft that is as convenient as a helicopter, but considerably cheaper to run. In addition, given the aircraft is smaller than the average plane, fitting a battery engine becomes easier, making the aircraft completely emissions-free.

The so called flying taxi can currently carry four passengers up to 100 miles (161km). There are many companies around the world trying to develop an all electric vertical take-off aircraft (eVTOL), but this will require some very sophisticated engineering. Eight small rotors mounted on small wings initially lift it off the tarmac, much like a helicopter. They then tilt to propel the vehicle forwards, offering more stability. However, this also adds more engineering risk.

The VX4 eVTOL, which has GKN technology on board, may have got a recent boost in its acceleration to market, after harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI). With the help of Monolith, AI is being used for new design insights and more efficient, quicker test plans. The first project focuses on testing and simulation of the VX4’s supporting pylon structures for ground tests of the propeller and electric motor structural and performance requirements.

Monolith’s advanced ‘Next Test Recommender’ (NTR) AI-driven algorithm will provide engineers with a ranked selection of the most impactful tests to run. This will increase design space coverage in unknown areas with a more efficient and trustworthy test plan. At the end of last year, Vertical’s engineers passed a new milestone at Cotswold Airport in Gloucestershire.

They were able to fly the aircraft ‘untethered’ – without a safety line to the ground. The achievement marks the next phase of their testing programme, overseen by the Civil Aviation Authority. This comes after Vertical secured a $50m (£39m) investment from the US investor, Mudrick Capital, as reported by the BBC. So, rather than being left to the pages of sci-fi novels, this could be taking to the skies sooner than we thought.

Tech gives you wings

To answer the question then, can you decarbonise the aerospace industry? I would say the answer is yes, you can. But as mentioned already, filling the skies with zero carbon emitting passenger and freight aircraft is a thing of the future as battery and hydrogen technology is simply not there yet.

Hydrogen is bulky and difficult to store in large quantities. It either needs to be kept as a highly compressed gas or as a very cold liquid. For it to be sustainable, it has to be made cleanly, from renewable sources – and supplies currently are very limited. Batteries, meanwhile, are heavy in relation to the energy they contain. Fine for powering smaller craft, but unsuitable for large, already heavy, passenger planes that are being used over long distances.

There have been some intriguing advancements in sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). SAFs are derived from renewable waste and residue materials like used cooking oils and animal fat waste. Without question, they offer a promising alternative to traditional jet fuel. They can be made in a lab to have the same characteristics as conventional fuels derived from crude oil, so they can be used in today’s aircraft.

Modern planes are capable of burning 100% SAF, as evidenced during a specially approved test flight in 2023. Virgin Atlantic f lew a Boeing 787 from London to New York using fuel exclusively produced from waste fats and plant sugars – amazing. But at this stage, not repeatable. The cost to produce SAF is currently higher than conventional jet fuel. Primarily due to the nascent stage of technologies and the scale of operations. And while modern planes can burn 100% SAF, older planes can’t.

The most modern aircraft are between 15-30% more fuel efficient than their predecessors. Once again, the cost would be prohibitive. The investment required for airlines to replace older planes with more modern equivalents would be substantial. However, these signs are nevertheless promising; the technology is there, and progress is being made. But it simply isn’t mature enough in 2025. Could it be by 2035?

What a zero emissions eVTOL could look like

At its centre in Bristol, GKN continues to develop the crucial technologies needed for the next generation of aircraft. GKN already holds a leading position in development of lightweight composites and additive manufacturing as well as integrating Industry 4.0 processes. But the hunger to continuously improve goes on, as research and development is built on further.

“Getting our digital processes in place has been game-changing,” said David. “And the need for skills in automation will be absolutely vital. “We’ve opened up the black box of robotics and found it to be something of a hack in enlightening and enabling the work that we do here and at our sites.” The hope is that all this good work continues. And when it comes to battery, hydrogen and SAF, these technologies will need to mature in time to match the increased demand of air travel.

According to forecasts from both Airbus and Boeing, global fleets are expected to more than double over the next two decades. Demand for flights won’t only increase in Europe and the US, it will also rise as the middle classes in countries like India and China expand. This is the challenge that aerospace faces. It’s a daunting one and yet I left GKN’s GTC in Bristol in confident mood, as I often do after visiting UK manufacturing facilities.