A record-breaking commercial-scale hydrogen plane has taken off in the UK, with more set to join it soon. How far can such planes go in cutting the aviation industry’s emissions? A As the plane rose from the runway for what was to prove a smooth and uneventful flight, the team breathed a sigh of relief. The six-seater Piper M-Class had been fitted out at a research and development hub at Cranfield airport in the UK to run on hydrogen, and on this maiden flight in the late summer of 2020 everything worked perfectly. With that flight, ZeroAvia, the California-based start-up that had developed the aircraft with partners in Britain and elsewhere, was ready to move to the next stage in the journey towards zero carbon aviation. A catchphrase for the transition to a low or zero carbon economy is “electrify everything” – that is, create a world in which […]