The mid-2030s will bring a new generation of large aircraft platforms aiming towards sustainable climate-neutral flight. While hybrid/electric energy architectures and ultra-efficient aircraft designs will pave the way towards climate-neutral aviation on <1 000km routes, aircraft for classical short- and medium-range distances rely on ultra-efficient thermal energy-based propulsion technologies using sustainable drop-in and non-drop-in fuels to enable climate-neutral flight. The novel aircraft and propulsion concepts will enable low source noise and low noise flight procedures. Due to the nature of close cooperation with other key stakeholders and actors in the European aeronautical community, the technology developments and demonstrations of this part of the research programme will yield additional value through direct spin-offs and cross-activities in neighbouring sectors like business jets and regional aircraft. Some specific developments and limited ground tests will be required to maximise impact.
The research and technology roadmap for the aircraft concept is built on demonstrators, addressing all key technologies to design and develop the next generation climate-neutral aircraft. Several highly promising technology developments have been started in national or European programmes such as the EcoPulse and BLADE project, as well as initiatives that are exploiting advanced propulsion concepts like open rotor and advanced laminar flow, etc. The first phase of the programme will aim to select, mature and qualify ‘best athlete’ technologies to exploit their full potential integrated into an ultra-low emission single aisle, short/medium range aircraft.
The roadmap aims to improve the energy efficiency of a new generation of short/medium-range aircraft by 30%. This will happen by 2035 thanks to a combination of disruptive technologies related to the airframe with ultra-efficient propulsion systems and their integration. The roadmap also includes an option for the demonstration and validation of an even more disruptive concept using hydrogen as a non-drop-in fuel, subject to a sufficiently mature capability provided by the Clean Aviation H2 technology development programme.
The roadmap of this development and demonstration programme goes well beyond the integration of an improved propulsion concept into ‘any’ short/medium range aircraft. It results in a holistic aircraft suite-solution for a future green, eco-efficient, economically viable and competitive large number serial product that will create momentum and achieve targeted impact at European and global scale. Within this context, four pillars are key constituents of the ‘Green Short/Mid-Range Aircraft’ development and demonstration roadmap.
The technical roadmap to develop, mature and demonstrate all technologies needed for next generation climate-neutral short- and medium-range aircraft follows a validation and verification ‘V&V’ approach, the main elements of which are displayed below.
The roadmap to develop, mature and demonstrate this vehicle is composed of two programme phases.
The first phase of the programme will be based on the distinct specification of top-level aircraft requirements that are framing the boundaries of a ‘technology work space’ for candidate technologies and concepts. This phase will involve finalising the conceptual design and the preliminary design characteristics of the targeted demonstration aircraft by selecting the best configuration. This will be based on holistic multidisciplinary numerical simulations, research and development of critical components, materials and processes, technologies and the associated integrated ground tests, such as high-Reynolds-number (flight condition) wind tunnel tests, functional bench tests (including virtual testing) and full-scale sub-component integration tests and flight tests. A digital aircraft platform will be established during phase 1, and the best combinations of phase 1 technologies for the target concept aircraft at mission and fleet level will be assessed via a complementary technology and concept aircraft evaluation platform.
The second phase of the programme will focus on validating and integrating selected best candidate technologies to form a single aircraft concept, which will be the result of the activities in phase 1. Key elements of the second phase will be large-scale integrated aircraft component tests and a large-scale flying demonstrator platform to validate the performance of key technologies for the targeted aircraft at realistic sizes under operational conditions.
The ambition to develop an ultra-low-emission single aisle aircraft requires rethinking the overall aircraft architecture, tackling and integrating essentially all major components efficiently.
Additional information on the key enabling technologies for ultra-efficient short to medium-range aircraft and strategy for demonstration is detailed in our Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA).