Farnborough 2008 Show News - July 16, 2008 - (Page 40)

CLEAN FA R N B O R O U G H 2 0 0 8 AND GREEN Don’t Be Crass— Use Biomass These days, aircraft—and engine manufacturers’ advertisements—make it easy to confuse an aerospace magazine with Gardener’s Weekly. Flush with verdant foliage, too, it is the latest venture from CFM International, which continues with initiatives to place the Franco-U.S. company at the forefront of biofuels testing, with a commitment to supporting the development of sustainable biofuel sources. Indeed, it has set itself the seemingly impossible task of developing fuels that will have minimal or no impact on food crops or water resources and will not contribute to deforestation. For alternative fuels to be used in the aviation industry, a number of major technology challenges must be met, including energy density, thermal stability (avoiding coking at high temperature), use at very low temperatures (freezing), lubricating effect with materials used and the availability of mass-production facilities worldwide. In the past year, CFM has successfully carried out two ground-test programs of CFM56 engines using biofuels and has facilitated a flight using renewable fuels. During 2009, the company will support a second flight-test program with Continental Airlines, when one of its Boeing 737s, powered by CFM56-7B engines, will perform a biofuels demonstration flight-test. In 2007, CFM completed an initial test of a CFM56-7B engine using an ester-type biofuel at Snecma’s Villaroche facility near Paris. The biofuel used was 30% vegetable oil ATC Can Play Role in Saving Fuel, Too As an airliner flies from one airport to another nowadays, air traffic control does not currently track and actively manage the timing of the flight’s progress, but that is about to change. The days of 3D air traffic management (socalled for the three spatial dimensions) without much thought about the fourth dimension (time) are numbered. Richard Deakin, senior vice president of the Thales Air Systems Div., says that the use of 4D trajectory management from gate to gate is an up-and-coming concept that is key to both the U.S. NextGen ATC modernization program and Europe’s Single Sky Air Traffic Management (SESAR) project. The Thales unit has installed 260 of its Eurocat X automated ATC systems in en route and terminal air traffic control centers in 55 nations. “You need to have 4D trajectory management to enable [enhanced] flow control. 4DT is a key building block,” says Deakin. At Stockholm’s Arlanda airport, SAS is demonstrating the use of these procedures. A 737 NG sends its intended flight path in 4D from a GE (formerly Smith’s) flight management computer to an ATC computer on the ground. Controllers can then approve the aircraft’s estimated time of arrival over the threshold from one hour before touchdown or revise it by issuing a new “required time of arrival” (RTA) as much as 6 minutes earlier or later. The air navigation service provider of Sweden—Luftfartsverket (LFV)—and Avtech, a consulting company in Stockholm, report that aircraft are crossing the threshold at plus or minus seven seconds of the RTA. Deakin says that the control of time needs to begin before pushback. Like lots of other airline passengers, he frequently finds that the plane he is in is at the end of a line of a dozen or more jets waiting for takeoff. “There is a huge amount of fuel burned while waiting to take off,” he says. So “4DT gate-to-gate” can make a huge difference, not only on the timing of a pushback, but in controlling the speed of a jet inbound to an airport. If the aircraft will arrive too early, based on comparing its 4D trajectories to other traffic, it can be slowed down en route, which also saves on fuel consumption. Since drag is proportional to the square of the speed, slowing down the aircraft by 10% will save more than 10% of the fuel. And the big payoff is that the plane won’t have to enter a holding pattern at the destination, it will be cleared for arrival immediately. Holding patterns are a complete waste of fuel, but they are commonly used in a 3D world where aircraft times of arrival in the terminal area are imprecise. A CFM56-7B engine will be tested on biofuels on a Continental Airlines 737. methyl ester blended with 70% conventional Jet-A1 fuel. This test was designed to validate the operation of a jet engine using a fuel made from biomass, without making any technical changes to the engine. The target for biofuels is a net reduction of 20 percent in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions compared with current fuels. CFM completed several hours of groundtesting at GE’s outdoor Peebles, Ohio, facility in late 2007 on two alternate fuels: a Fischer-Tropsch synthetic fuel and an Imperium Renewables biofuel composed of babassu oil and coconut oil. In February of this year, that same Imperium fuel was then used by Virgin Atlantic to fuel one of the CF6 engines powering its own Boeing 747 on a flight from London to Amsterdam. This sortie has been hailed as “the first ever flown on renewable fuel,” although that would suggest the other three engines were inoperative during the flight. Perhaps everyone should take a leaf out of CFM’s book. —Paul Jackson Lean, Green Focus for MRO Europe Industry leaders are expected to address looming challenges such as the skilled labor shortage and green maintenance at AVIATION WEEK’s MRO Europe conference. The conference, to be held Sept. 24-25 in Madrid, will examine how MROs can continue to reinforce lean advantages while also making the industry greener. Speakers will explore reconciling economics and environmental sustainability, with conference sessions devoted to green maintenance, cleaner-running engines and the future of new fuels. Other issues to be examined include ensuring sustainability and safety in the face of increased traffic, dealing with data pollution, where to find the aerospace worker of the future and emerging markets. Featured speakers include airline chief executives such as Iberia’s Fernando Conte and TAP Portugal’s Fernando Pinto, as well as other high-profile aviation industry figures. Conte will open the conference on Sept. 24 with a keynote address, while Pinto will speak the following day on challenges facing MROs over the next five years. The event’s international exhibition hall will have more than 300 MRO product and service suppliers. Attendee numbers are expected to exceed 3,000 this year. 40 July 16, 2008 www.aviationweek.com/shownews http://www.aviationweek.com/shownews

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Farnborough 2008 Show News - July 16, 2008

Bombardier, Shenyang $5 Billion for Composites 787 and Seven V-22s for Export Sale? Saving Fuel at SFO Raytheon Roars Into UAVs Bell Eyes ARH-70A Costs All According to Plan We Fly the PC-12NG Russia’s T-50 PAK-FA Optimistic in Israel ICAO Sim Classifications Pratt to Power New Drone Russian Conglomerate

Farnborough 2008 Show News - July 16, 2008

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