Clean Sky Green Regional Aircraft Flying Demonstrator takes off

08/07/2015

 

Today the Clean Sky Green Regional Aircraft Integrated Technology Demonstrator (GRA ITD), unveiled its "green" ATR Flying Demonstrator. The Technology Demonstrator Aircraft lifted off from Toulouse Airport, at 10:30 am CET. The GRA ITD Flying Demonstrator successfully completed its maiden flight landing at 12:30 AM.

 

In this Flying Demonstrator, an entire (aluminium) section of the upper fuselage has been replaced with an innovative composite panel. In this panel a layer to provide additional acoustic damping is embedded, as well as two different technologies for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM). The flight tests are part of the further technology maturation of the design and manufacturing of advanced composite panels, to prove the CFRP material feasibility and its benefits by insertion on future regional aircraft products. Today's flight test targets ambitious environmental goals with expected benefits on weight, internal noise, assembly costs and structural health monitoring capability. The flight test program is expected to last 6 flights.

The Flying Demonstrator has been conceived by Alenia Aermacchi in cooperation with ATR, who performed the installation of the composite panel into the ATR 72-600 prototype testing aircraft. Fraunhofer Gesellschaft provided optical fibres & piezo electric sensors/actuators for the in-flight measurements.

 

"Today we reached a key milestone in the the Green Regional Aircraft programme, right on target for mid-2015 Flying Demonstration and in compliance with the weight and CO2 performance objectives set for the Clean Sky Joint Undertaking by the Council Regulation (EC) No 71/2008 and correlated rules," said Marco Protti, Head of Advanced Research Unit of Alenia Aermacchi.

 

Eric Dautriat, Executive Director of Clean Sky "Today's successful flight shows the real progress accomplished in introducing large pieces of innovative materials in regional aircraft. The outcome opens the door to further improvement to the environmentally friendly planes people expect. I am pleased to see evidence that the Clean Sky Demonstrators are already in the sky".

 


Clean Sky is a Joint Undertaking of the European Commission and the European aeronautics industry and part of the EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. Clean Sky is also the largest European research programme for aeronautics. It develops innovative, cutting-edge technology aimed at reducing CO2, gas emissions and noise levels produced by aircraft.  In doing so, Clean Sky contributes to strengthening European global leadership and competitiveness. The programme has a €4 billion budget for a timeframe of 7 years.

 


 

For further information, please visit www.cleansky.eu and/or http://www.aleniaaermacchi.it/technologies-tecnologie-1/research-development-ricerca-sviluppo/clean-sky




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