By David Learmount at the Farnborough air show
The European Commission is to fund 50% of a €1.7 billion ($2.12 billion) research and development programme to be known as Clean Sky, and seven European companies signed a letter of intent (LoI) at Farnborough to participate. The programme is intended to lead to financially "risky" innovations that would make aviation more environmentally friendly.
The companies that have signed the LoI are Airbus, Dassault Aviation, Eurocopter, Liebherr-Aerospace, Rolls-Royce, Safran and Thales. The aim of the programme is to achieve the environmental objectives set out by the Advisory Council for Aeronautics Research in Europe, says Airbus.
Airbus vice-president research and technology Dieter Schmitt says that the Clean Sky initiative has yet to be cleared through the European political system, which will take at least a year. Then it will be a seven-year project designed to reach the proof-of-concept stage in areas that have not been researched.
He says that the programme is designed to enable commercial companies to think further ahead and carry out riskier projects than would normally be fiscally feasible, and to leverage the capabilities of research agencies and universities as well as technical expertise within the companies.
"We find this has a multiplier effect on what the aerospace industry can do," says Schmitt.
As examples of commercially risky projects he cites active wing control and the testing of novel configurations that would not normally be considered worth investment.
When Clean Sky has been approved, says Airbus, "it will be managed in the same way as an industrial programme, with a general assembly, executive committee and a director".
Source: Flight International
