GE Aerospace’s Hybrid-Electric Leader Pushes CFM’s RISE Plan for Cleaner Narrowbody Engines

GE Aerospace executive Christine Andrews used a recent appearance at the BloombergNEF Summit in San Francisco to argue that commercial aviation’s shift to lower-carbon propulsion will require multiple technologies to mature at the same time. Speaking to industry audiences in late January, Andrews said GE is working on sustainable aviation fuel, hybrid electric propulsion, hydrogen and next-generation engine architectures, in part to understand how those approaches can work together in real aircraft programs. She framed the effort as a necessary step toward the industry’s widely cited goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

GE’s electrification effort includes NASA-backed testing aimed at proving hybrid electric flight for commercial aircraft. GE is developing a megawatt-class hybrid electric propulsion system for ground and flight demonstrations later this decade under NASA’s Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration, or EPFD. The company said the work has moved beyond lab development, including tests in 2022 where GE and NASA ran a megawatt-class, multi-kilovolt hybrid electric power system while simulating altitude conditions up to 45,000 feet, supporting what GE described as “altitude ready” progress.

Andrews also connected that hybrid electric pathway to how future engines may be certified and deployed. In the EPFD flight-test effort, GE and partners plan to use a modified Saab 340B aircraft powered by GE’s CT7 turboprop engines, with Boeing and Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences responsible for aircraft modifications and flight-test services. GE said the partners will handle system integration and flight testing, including work tied to nacelle manufacturing, flight deck interface design and software, and aircraft-level performance analysis.

A central theme in Andrews’ remarks was that electrification is not being treated as a standalone solution. She told audiences that hybrid electric technologies can pair with sustainable aviation fuel, noting that GE’s engines are “SAF-ready.” Sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, is chemically similar to conventional jet fuel but is produced from renewable or lower-carbon sources, and GE’s position is that using alternative feedstocks and processes reduces lifecycle CO2 emissions compared with fossil-derived jet fuel.

Andrews’ comments then turned to CFM International’s RISE program, short for Revolutionary Innovation for Sustainable Engines. CFM is a 50-50 joint company between GE Aerospace and Safran Aircraft Engines. Andrews described RISE as a platform intended to achieve at least 20% better fuel efficiency and 20% lower CO2 emissions than the most efficient engines in today’s fleet. In a broader technology-development framing, GE’s materials on the program say the demonstration effort is designed to mature new disruptive technologies for potential entry into service by the mid-2030s.

In RISE, the hardware concept receiving the most attention is an open fan architecture. Andrews characterized the open fan as the most noticeable change, describing an arrangement where the fan blades are “unducted,” meaning they are not covered by an engine nacelle. She said the approach is meant to combine higher propulsive efficiency from the open fan with improved thermal efficiency from a compact core that can be “jam-packed” with technology, including hybrid electric elements, to target the fuel burn reductions GE expects for the narrowbody aircraft class.

The timing and sequencing of that technology integration is another point Andrews emphasized. In her view, the near-term challenge is not just building new components, but determining which combinations work best, then testing and scaling them for the market. She said the industry has spent years untangling long-running engineering complexities, pointing to decades of work on unducted turbofan concepts and subsequent advances enabled by computing, including steps aimed at lowering noise while improving fuel efficiency. Andrews said that layered history is part of why she views the moment as both challenging and promising.

Even with those targets, GE did not provide additional numeric milestones or certification schedules beyond what was already embedded in its description of RISE and EPFD. The company also did not disclose, in the announcement, how much of the targeted 20% fuel efficiency improvement would be attributed specifically to open fan versus hybrid electric versus combustion and alternative-fuel enablement, nor did it offer updates on flight-test progress for EPFD beyond references to the test-bed aircraft and earlier altitude simulation results. For investors and aircraft buyers, the next announcement to watch is how GE and CFM articulate measurable progress in component testing, demonstrator runs, and the path to scaling the architecture across the single-aisle fleet.