The US FAA announced today that it has awarded five contracts worth $125 million to help develop and demonstrate technologies that help improve fuel burn, aircraft emissions, and noise pollution.
The contracts are part of the agency's continuous lower energy, emissions and noise, or Cleen, programme.
Boeing, General Electric, Honeywell, Pratt & Whitney, and Rolls-Royce-North America have been awarded the contracts.
Each vendor will either match or exceed contributions provided by the FAA, "bringing the overall value of the programme to more than $250 million," the agency reports. FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said at the Air Transport World Eco-Aviation conference today that this policy would help "leverage the taxpayer's dollar".
Goals of the technologies developed through CLEEN include a 33% reduction in fuel burn, a 60% decrease in nitrogen oxide emissions during landing and takeoff, and a 32 dB decrease in engine noise by 2015.
Babbitt says that these contracts will "accelerate the commercialization" of these technologies and help get them "into service as quickly as possible".
Areas of research and development include new fuels, more efficient engine components, open rotor and geared turbofan engines, and others.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
