Today and tomorrow the participants in Europe's Green Regional Aircraft (GRA) programme are in Caserta, Italy to get the technical activity underway. Briefly, GRA is one of the six strands of the all-important Clean Sky research programme. That in turn is the pan-European research effort aimed at helping industry achieve the continent's environmental targets in aviation. GRA accounts for €174 million of Clean Sky's €1.6 billion over seven years.
Alenia is of course the half-owner of ATR, along with EADS, and this programme is highly significant for Italy as well as Europe. The company tried unsuccessfully to buy EADS out of the joint venture, and more recently took a 25% stake in Russia's Sukhoi Superjet. If it can position itself as Europe's centre of excellence in regional aircraft then it could be a major world player when the next generation of aircraft takes over.
And of course these aircraft could be very green indeed. Already they're the least polluting and quietest types, and the GRA work is intended to cut fuel burn, emissions and noise by about another 10% each - before further gains from future powerplants and propellers.
The GRA team will actually demonstrate technologies in the areas of:
And of course these aircraft could be very green indeed. Already they're the least polluting and quietest types, and the GRA work is intended to cut fuel burn, emissions and noise by about another 10% each - before further gains from future powerplants and propellers.
The GRA team will actually demonstrate technologies in the areas of:
- aerodynamic technologies to cut noise (such as streamlined landing gear)
- weight reduction through new materials (notably composites, in which Alenia is now a world-leader)
- more-electric aircraft concepts (to cut down on engine-powered ancillaries and to reduce weight still further)
- the airborne part of 4-D trajectory-based air traffic management and navigation
- various other integrating technologies.
Alenia is looking to have these technologies in the air by 2013 and in airline service by 2020. Might be props, might be jets - which really is a major issue to be worked out.
(Caserta's an interesting place!)
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