KEY OBJECTIVES

  • Globally, 45% of today's flights are operated with regional aircraft, and by 2020 this figure is estimated to rise to around 50%
  • The objective of the Green Regional Aircraft integrated technology demonstrator (ITD) is to validate and demonstrate technologies best fitting the pollution and noise reduction goals set for a future regional aircraft that will enter the market at some point in the 2020s

The ITD will deliver:

  • Low weight technical solutions using advanced structures and materials
  • Configurations for low aerodynamic noise
  • The optimised integration of technologies developed in other ITDs

Its activities will:

  • Develop the most promising mainstream technologies (low weight and low noise configurations) to enable the "greening" of future regional aircraft
  • Integrate technical solutions, using a multidisciplinary approach, from mainstream technologies and from other technical domains of Clean Sky into the demonstrators of the Green Regional Aircraft
  • Use technology from several recent or ongoing research programmes to constitute a significant resource for the Green Regional Aircraft ITD.
  • Technologies and solutions developed and matured in the ITD will be used to increase confidence on their applicability to future aircraft programmes
  • Full-scale advanced structural assemblies, low noise advanced aerodynamics, integration of advanced systems and avionics will be tested on the ground and in flight as appropriate, along with large-scale windtunnel tests of advanced aircraft configurations

Source: Flight International