Airbus is calling for more research into the impact of non-CO2 emissions and how to abate them, as preliminary results from a contrail-reduction study have revealed positive results from flight optimisation.
“On CO2 for sure we know the impact, that’s the cumulative effect, that’s the certainty, so we can work on that,” Sabine Klauke, Airbus chief technology officer, told FlightGlobal on 24 July.
But on the non-CO2 side “while we know some effects, at lot of the science is not yet at the level so that we know which direction in which to act.
“And that’s the whole area where we need to get much more knowledge.”
Klauke says research needs to identify the impact of non-CO2 emissions – including soot, NOx, and contrails – and then the potential trade-offs against reducing CO2.
More data is also required, she says, to improve digital modelling to avoid the need for flight testing which is “sometimes tedious and sometimes not very efficient”, particularly around contrail formation.
“We have had cases where we flew a lot and we finally had to live with very little data points.”
Airbus is already engaged in several research projects such as the Blue Condor hydrogen combustion contrail studies being performed by its UpNext innovations arm, and a separate initiative called Nephele focused on fuel cells.
That will see fuel cells operated in a cloud chamber to simulate the contrail effects of their use.
In the meantime, Klauke is hailing preliminary results from CICONIA, a research project looking at contrail formation, forecasting and avoidance.
Airbus and consortium partners including UK air navigation service provider NATS, Meteo-France and German aerospace research institute DLR, have developed tools, climate impact models, operating concepts, and sensors related to contrails.
Preliminary results from 87 flights have shown an 81% contrail climate impact reduction on optimised flights, and an overall 65% climate impact reduction over all trial flights.
In addition, the results showed the contrail-avoidance measures came at the expense of just a 1% increase in fuel burn.
“It’s good to see that we can do a lot of things and have a lot of impact for very little cost,” Klauke adds.
Klauke’s comments came after she and her fellow CTOs from, Boeing, Dassault, GE Aerospace, Rolls-Royce, RTX and Safran signed a joint declaration calling for an increase in funding for research “to develop the science needed to underpin technology choices, operational changes, and policy decisions.” It outlines seven priority areas for study.
