The sky’s going green
Paris air fair showcases ways to use less jet fuel
AIRCRAFT manufacturers and their airline and military customers will descend on Le Bourget airport in France next week for the 51st Paris Air Show – the largest and longest-running in the world.
With the i ndustry expected to demand more than 38,000 new passenger jets over the next 20 years, according to American plane-maker Boeing, aerospace firms are looking at fulfilling an order book worth a staggering £3.6trillion.
Global passenger traffic is growing at around 5pc a year with more than seven billion people set to travel by the end of Boeing’s forecast period.
But with the major manufacturers admitting it will be years now before the launch of a completely new aircraft, the likes of Boeing and European rival Airbus are making changes big and small to their existing fleets to make them more appealing to operators.
That means one of the themes for this year’s Paris show will be technology that could give manfucturers an edge on their rivals.
Airbus made a splash this week flying its E-Fan 2.0 electric prototype which can achieve a speed of 136mph, weighs less than half a ton and can stay aloft for an hour.
Although the full potential for electric - powered ai r pl anes remains some way off, airlines are keen for plane-makers to find new ways of trimming their biggest single cost – jet fuel.
Mike Sinnett, head of product development at Boeing, says: ‘If you can save 1pc of fuel burn in an aircraft then the airlines are willing to pay for it.’
That’s why many of the improvements on Boeing’s new 737 Max aircraft – which has just gone into production – are related to the engines. ‘They can carry more people further and for less money,’ Sinnett explains.
Boeing also claims to be cutting CO2 by 20pc, compared with previous aircraft, and noise by 40pc.
‘It will be as efficient as driving a car,’ adds Julie Felgar, Boeing’s head of environmental strategy and integration.
She reckons that between 4.5pc and 7pc of fuel can be saved just by flying the aircraft differently.
For example, data derived from engine computers and accu- rate weather reports can be used to guide pilots to fly more efficient routes.
Felgar notes that in the 1970s the big issue was noise pollution. Today it is more about carbon dioxide emissions and fuel use, which can only increase as the global aviation industry expands.
Boeing spends 75pc of the research and development budget at its commercial aircraft division on so-called green technologies. Why? ‘We need a strategy that also is to have a licence to grow,’ Felgar says. ‘Although flying is 60pc more efficient than driving, aviation is 2pc of carbon emissions in the world. We are doing everything we can to drive those numbers down.’
Boeing wants to be carbon neutral by 2020 and by 2050 to have halved CO2 emissions – an aggressive target.
Biofuels are another major area of investigation. Boeing, for example, has trialled a blend of green diesel and jet fuel to power one of its EcoDemonstrator aircraft, a flying laboratory used to test fresh ideas.
This has also seen Boeing develop a ‘bug phobic’ spray that stops the thousands of insects squashed onto the leading edge of airliner wings in flight from sticking to the surface, thus reducing the aerodynamic flow.
Shareholders are also beginning to take a closer interest in aviation’s environmental impact, particularly activist investors who expect firms to be more focused on it.
Technology is now so important that Airbus recently launched a venture capital fund and a new technology and business innovation centre to be based in Silicon Valley, California, to help find new ideas and ways of doing business. It has committed an initial $150m (£97m) of funding for Airbus Ventures, as the unit will be known.
Paul Eremenko has j oined from Google to head the technology centre.
Closer to home, Airbus will be flying its giant A380 super-jumbo at the Paris show along with the spectacle of its next generation A350 wide-body jet.
Le Bourget attendees continue to have a love-hate relationship with Paris because of the show’s difficult transport connections, woeful mobile phone reception and miles of exhibition space.
Yet it remains an essential part of the aerospace industry calendar – including for British companies, although defence giant BAE Systems has opted to sit this one out amid some suggestions the price for exhibitors is getting too high.
Paul Everitt, head of aerospace lobby group ADS, says: ‘It’s really important that Europe continues to have a strong, annual, globally significant air show.’