ABSTRACT
Commercial transport aircraft must be capable of operating anywhere in the world. Obviously, fuel for the aircraft must be available wherever the aircraft are expected to operate. This chapter discusses some of the interesting uses which have been found for hydrogen in aeronautics, and examines the potential for its use as a fuel in advanced designs of both supersonic and subsonic commercial transport aircraft. It summarizes the experience with hydrogen in aeronautics to provide a basis for confidence that hydrogen can be successfully and safely employed as a fuel in commercial aircraft. The first industrial use of hydrogen was for the inflation of balloons in 1783. Based on the favorable prospects for hydrogen resulting from the foregoing qualitative analysis, early in 1972 some quantitative design studies were undertaken at Lockheed-California Company.
