Philippe Jarry

Future Innovations in Aircraft Design and

Development

____________________________________________________________________ Philippe Jarry Vice-President, Product Strategy, Airbus Industries

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Inhaltsverzeichnis

1 PART ONE : WHY ? .................................................................. 107

2 PART TWO: HOW ? .................................................................. 111

3 PART THREE: HOW TO MITIGATE THE RISK ?............. 123

4 CONCLUSION ............................................................................ 128

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One could say that aviation, itself, was an innovation. For Centuries, man walked, run, crawled, jumped on the earth surface … But, when a man like Otto Lilienthal decided to build a hill next to his house in order to test a glider, he was definitely innovating …

More than a century later, with the development of a formidable air trans-port industry, with families of clever, efficient, safe airliners, one can wonder whether more innovations have to take place, or whether this in-dustry has reached a kind of “plateau” and can simply enjoy the show.

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So, WHY would we innovate is certainly the first question to ask oursel-ves. Then the question becomes HOW, and finally HOW TO MAKE IT HAPPEN, that is how to mitigate the risks linked to innovation, so that it is fruitful and accepted.

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1 PART ONE : WHY ?

Various causes: external forces, internal forces: competion pressure, as we are working in a competitive environment; new market requirements as we are living in a changing world; customer requirements, as the cus-tomer is always more demanding ... So, we ought to investigate what the major players' requirements/expectations are in order to determine the fields in which we could develop our imagination and capabilities to in-novate.

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• The passenger, ever changing, ever more demanding in terms of prices, comfort, safety, transportation efficiency

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• The airline operators always more demanding in terms of fleet effi-ciency, product discrimination, aircraft productivity

• The airports who understand the need to be good neighbours in spite of the need to “treat” more traffic year after year

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• The general public, who whether it travel by air or not, expects the air transport industry to respect the planet, the atmosphere, the quality of life of the people “down there”

When one amalgamates all these requirements, we end-up focusing on economic efficiency, allowing more people and more goods to travel by air and on environmental impact, in order to keep the air travel nuisance as low as possible. There is room for improvement when we look at to-day’s airliners, and innovation will have to be introduced to obtain the results we want.

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2 PART TWO: HOW ?

Innovations will be needed to fight the traditional airliner enemies: drag and weight that create the need for lift and thrust: the fields of aerody-namics, weight reduction, engine and systems efficiency will have to be explored to bring lighter, more efficient airliners. In the field of systems, one might have to rethink the traditional way the energy is created, dis-tributed on the airliner: we certainly are heading towards a more electric and a less hydraulic airliner. Also, as the airliner size gets bigger, the en-ergy needed to handle it requires new concepts: the A380 is a good ex-ample.

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At another end of the spectrum, innovations needed to satisfy the end customer (the passenger) might well work against the above efforts, as more services, more comfort, more space will be provided, hence more drag and weight ... Another loop of innovations will have to take place. Don't forget that the 2010 passenger is also heavier, taller than his father, the 1970 passenger (this is another innovation!). Cabin equipment, seat materials, water use, electrical supply will have to be more clever than what they are today.

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For the people who are conscious of the need to limit the environmental impact of the air transport activity, innovations will consist of obtaining a higher level of propulsion efficiency, a lower level of fuel consumption and emission of pollutants. Sometimes, various targets can be met with the same innovations; sometimes they are in contradiction with one an-other, forcing the engineers to decide on trade-offs .

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3 PART THREE: HOW TO MITIGATE THE RISK ?

We can state that there is no progress without taking some risks. Some-one has to make the conscious decision to look beyond, to go beyond, well to explore. We remember that Otto Lilienthal gave his life during his attempts to glide further and further, always trying to improve his equip-ment.

The air transport activity requests the highest level of safety, of reliabil-ity: no records need to be broken: simply the routine of a “perfect” opera-tion. This means that the innovative concepts need to be proven, and ma-ture before they reach the airliner. Does it mean that innovation is thus impossible? Should it be kept to other sectors like the military industry? Not quite. But step introduction after intensive testing is the rule.

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Also, take into account that we not only refer to technical risks but to fi-nancial risks as well. The air transport sector becomes more and more privatized, it needs sustained financial soundness.

In the field of aerodynamics, flight envelope protection, systems design, crew/aircraft interface but also passenger interface with the airplane, the testing activity is the pivot point of development: budget, time for this activity largely explains the phasing of an airliner pre-development/development history.

4 CONCLUSION

You might not be able to spot the amount of innovation there is on-board an airliner when you just look at it from the outside. The innovation of the A320 was inside its systems: FBW command chain allowed for a dif-ferent way to handle an airliner trajectory, with the crew sending orders to the airplane. The external shape of the A320 though, remained "con-ventional". Nonetheless, the A320 created a new breed of airliners, with FBW systems now being adopted industry-wide.

But the fields in which innovation find its way on-board an airliner are countless: let's just again mention:

• A new material which will positively contribute to a lighter airplane while helping in production and maintenance

• The new cycle retained for an engine which will create more thrust while saving fuel, reducing emissions and noise exposure

• The airplane-ground communication links which will allow for real-time understanding and correction of a failure, or the preparation of the maintenance as soon as the plane lands

• Fuel cells which will provide the energy on-board while the produc-tion of water will help satisfy the needs of the passengers

• Even a new, lighter carpet in the passenger cabin will contribute to reduce the weight, increase the range or the payload, hence the pro-ductivity of an airplane …

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• It is probably difficult not to mention here the safety innovations: tak-ing the example of the recent events in which airliners sadly had a role: Airbus received more than a thousand proposals from all over the world by people who simply proposed innovative ways to discour-age hijackers to enter the cockpit.

Innovations for the air transport: definitely for the people who combine imagination and solid engineering capabilities.