Photo Credit: Airbus The EcoPulse distributed propulsion hybrid aircraft demonstrator — which is being developed by Daher (Wissous, France), Safran (Paris, France) and Airbus (Toulouse, France) with the support of France’s CORAC civil aviation research council — has successfully passed its Preliminary Design Review (PDR) as a first step toward validating the project’s feasibility and firming up the architecture for a first flight scheduled in 2022. Incorporating a distributed propulsion configuration from Daher, Safran and Airbus, EcoPulse was originally unveiled at the 2019 Paris Air Show. Now, backed by the French government, with a reaffirmation of support coming in the framework of France’s recovery plan presented June 2020, this shared hybrid aircraft project is said to have the goal of helping to transform the aviation sector, such as enabling the development of technologies that reduce the environmental footprint of future commercial aircraft, which will in turn contribute to the air transportation sector’s decarbonization objectives by 2050.