GE Aviation is to build a new research and development centre, focused on "electrical power integration", at its campus in Bishops Cleeve near Cheltenham in the UK this year.

A consortium in which GE is participating has meanwhile been granted a role in an environmental initiative being pursued jointly by the US Federal Aviation Administration and the European Commission: the Atlantic-interopability initiative to reduce emissions green connections (AIRE) initiative.

The new centre will collaborate with local academics and be accessible to third-party organisations. It is intended to enable the development of new power generation, distribution, load and avionics control technologies for military and civil aerospace applications.

The UK's South West Regional Development Agency is providing a capital grant of £3 million ($4.6 million) in support of the 2,790m2 (30,000ft2) facility, which will be open for preliminary work by year end and fully operational by March. GE is to open a similarly focused research centre near Dayton, Ohio in 2012.

The LFV Sweden-led consortium engaged in the AIRE green connections initiative includes Swedavia, Scandinavian Airlines and Rockwell Collins, as well as GE. The project it will execute, one of 18 within AIRE, will focus on efficiencies in taxiing, take-off and landing.

As part of the project, GE will develop a flight management system that reports four-dimensional trajectories considering latitude, longitude, altitude and time to predict the optimum flight path.

To start this year, the AIRE green connections project is to run for 10 months. Flights from Gothenburg Landvetter to Stockholm Arlanda will be subject to gate-to-gate evaluation while flights to the latter airport's Runway 26 will deploy a short approach developed by the project to reduce flight distances by 20nm (37km) thereby saving 100kg (220lb) of fuel and 300kg of carbon dioxide emissions.

Source: Flight Daily News