FutureFlight
AeroDelft Student Team Unveils Hydrogen-powered Aircraft
The unmanned Phoenix PT aircraft will run on liquid hydrogen and has been built entirely from carbon fiber composites.
Phoenix PT
The AeroDelft student team unveiled its Phoenix PT prototype on February 26, a few months ahead of the start of flight testing. (Photo: AeroDelft)

Students from the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands have built a prototype for a liquid-hydrogen-powered aircraft and are preparing to start flight testing later this year. The Phoenix PT model has been developed over the past two years by the college’s AeroDelft team of around 50 aerospace students from 17 countries who unveiled the aircraft today.

With a maximum takeoff weight of just 50 kg (110 pounds), the aircraft is intended only as a research project to give the students experience with the propulsion, composite structures, electronic controls, and certification challenges associated with a new aircraft. The design, which looks like a glider, has a long wing with a six-meter span (just under 20 feet) and a much shorter fuselage that is just 2.9 meters in length.