In its ‘Future by Airbus’ programme the plane-maker offers a vision of what the aircraft and the experience of air travel might be like by 2050. Peter Mercer reports. © AIRBUS S.A.S 2010 - All rights reserved - EIAI
A WHOLE NEW WAY TO FLY A
irbus has been looking into the future. It has been imagining some of the radical innovations in air travel that could take place by the middle of the century. Its ‘future solutions’ include a revolutionary Airbus Concept Plane and an equally radical Concept Cabin, ideas for ‘smarter flight’ that see improved air traffic management cutting flight times, fuel burns and emissions, and new energy sources that will better protect the environment. The Concept Plane is an engineer’s dream in the sense that the technological innovations that it brings together are unlikely ever to coexist in an actual aircraft. But if this is not a plane that will ever fly, all the technologies it incorporates are feasible and, indeed, are already being developed by Airbus for applications in future aircraft. What makes the Concept Plane so useful for Airbus engineers is that it provides a platform on which they can bring together different technologies without having to worry about the impact of one on the other – which in reality, of course, is always a major constraint on radical innovation. The fuselage of the Concept Plane is not the simple tube we are used to but 14 Industry Europe
is curved and shaped to provide more internal space for various cabin configurations as well as to improve its aerodynamic performance. This fuselage – and indeed the whole aircraft structure – is manufactured entirely from composite materials to take advantage of their easy-to-shape characteristics. The entry/exit doorways are double doors to enable faster and easier boarding. Longer and slimmer configured wings reduce drag from the flow of air over the wing surface and so improve fuel efficiency, while the concept plane does not have a vertical tail at all. One of the most important functions of the vertical tail on today’s aircraft, whose engines are installed on the wings, is to provide directional stability in the event of engine failure. But, says Airbus, the engines of the future will have no risk of failure so a vertical tail is unnecessary. Instead the tail section is U-shaped and acts as a shield to reduce the aircraft’s external noise. The vertical tail will also be redundant because the engines will not hang off the wings. They will be at the rear of the fuselage and semi-embedded. This location opti-
mises fuel burn and improves cabin comfort through much reduced noise levels and is practicable because the superior reliability of future engines will mean that there is much less need for immediate and easy access to engine components. Maintenance requirements of the aircraft’s electrical and electronic systems will also be greatly reduced. In fact, Airbus believes that future electronic and other on-board systems will be entirely self-sufficient, continuously monitoring their own state of health and scheduling any maintenance that is needed well in advance. Actual maintenance is likely to be minimum to zero. The composite materials that will be used in the aircraft structure will not only be light and easily shaped – they will also be ‘intelligent’, able to sense the loads that they are under and so making possible an even lighter aircraft that burns less fuel and creates lower emissions. And, despite the advanced nature of these new materials and the complex shapes that will be formed from them, the cost and environmental impact of building the aircraft will be significantly reduced by new manufacturing methods.
