Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Contents
1. Introduction 2
3. The UK opportunity 5
4. Innovation in aircraft 7
8. Acknowledgements 21
£24
billion a year to the economy
100,000
aerospace is prized as an industrial investing heavily in new aircraft and
sector worldwide. Air traffic, which more sustainable technologies. There industry, accounting for jobs
barely slackened during the recent is a lot of business to be won for the
downturn, is now forecast to rise at UK but also a lot of competition to win
a rate of 4.7% a year between now it. Aerospace is seen as a core sector in
and 2030, meaning a doubling in the the industrial development strategies
next 15 years. Airlines and other of many countries.
The UK has a lot to win with To support the work of the AGP, the
the forecast growth in global Academy and Royal Aeronautical
Society have been proactive
aerospace. The UK has 3,000
in initiatives to enhance the
companies directly involved in the
competitiveness of the sector through
industry, accounting for 100,000 innovation and skills development.
jobs directly and a further 130,000 Together they administer a scheme
indirectly. to award Aerospace MSc bursaries
to deliver more masters-qualified
The importance of aerospace to engineering professionals for the UK
Photo © NATS
the UK has been recognised by a aerospace industry.
government and industry initiative,
the Aerospace Growth Partnership The need for special measures within
(AGP). The work of the AGP was the aerospace sector, Everitt said,
outlined at the event by Paul was identified from the sheer scale of
Everitt, chief executive of ADS, the the opportunities: “It’s a £4.5 trillion
aerospace, defence and security market in the next 20 years, with
industry association. The partnership, a forecast for 29,000 large aircraft,
Everitt said, was part of a new maybe 40,000 helicopters and many
political consensus in the UK that thousand more business jets”. The
saw designing and manufacturing as UK currently has capabilities in all of
“a good thing” and that also believed these product areas, and perhaps 16
there was a legitimate role for to 17% of the global market. “With
government in helping UK industry the scale of the opportunity, to miss it
to win business around the world would be a crime.”
through a modern industrial strategy.
4. Innovation in aircraft
same time the airlines are not getting At the same time, the UK industry’s
richer,” he said. “One of the reasons ability to export components and
for growth is that the cost of travel systems to other countries is also
is going down, and we have to have being developed. The National
to have products that will be cleaner, Aerospace Technology Exploitation
more efficient but still cheaper.” Programme has been set up with a
£40 million fund specifically aimed to
The strategy for innovation within develop innovation within the supply Most fixed-wing aircraft in Demands from the public are for
the AGP is founded on a £2 billion chain outside the big name companies service today are recognisably more sustainable forms of aviation:
96% of those who took the survey
investment by government and such as BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce. the descendants of the first planes
agreed that they wanted flying to
that flew just over a century ago.
be more environmentally friendly.
There has been limited change in The same demand can be heard from
The Rolls-Royce their configuration and reliance on the regulators. The European Union’s
Trent XWB
fossil fuels since the introduction Flightpath 2050 strategy, which set
© Rolls-Royce
of the jet engine in the early targets for the European industry to
1950s. The predicted demands 2050, wants to see carbon dioxide
emissions associated with aviation
on aerospace industry as 2050
reduced by 75% and noise by 65%
approaches suggest that more compared to the year 2000.
radical change will be needed if CO2
emissions targets are to be met. These targets, Remy said, demanded
a new approach: “We have to rethink
the nature of the basic vehicle for the
More electric flight first time since about 1950,” he said.
Recently, Airbus Group’s all-electric
Sébastien Remy, Head of Airbus Group technology demonstrator, the E-Fan,
Innovations, said that the pressure made its maiden flight. The small
to change the norms of the aerospace plane has two 30kW motors, using
industry was coming from consumers lithium-ion batteries, and can fly for
as well as regulators. A survey of around 45 minutes.
airline passengers indicated a finding
that was apparently contradictory: Airbus Group is not the only company
32% of those polled said that flight that is investigating electric
delays and late arrivals are the propulsion, but it is the biggest.
greatest annoyance of air travel, yet Remy highlighted the potential for
two-thirds said they still expected to electrical concepts to be transferred
fly more. to helicopters or regional jets. Despite
Hybrid Air Vehicles’ current Airlander “We also see a big opportunity in supplying very
10 is due to make its first flight in
late 2014. It will act as a testbed for remote areas… essentially, hybrid air vehicles can take
a range of innovative technologies off and land on any flat surface.”
to be used in a much bigger version,
the Airlander 50, that the company
intends to launch before the end of
the decade. “The Airlander 10 will tell
Photo © Hybrid us a lot,” Stewart said. New systems
Air Vehicles Ltd for the Airlander 50 are being tested
5. Innovation in flight
operations
“The challenge now is to get out of for tasks such as televising sports and This flight showed the potential ASTRAEA is now setting out a follow-
this constraint of segregation,” said aerial archaeological investigation. of unmanned flight, but it also on programme of work to verify
Lambert Dopping-Hepenstal FREng, highlighted areas for further research. and validate the key technologies,
Programme Director of ASTRAEA, “Essentially, this is a systems which include detect and avoid,
the UK consortium of aerospace engineering problem,” Dopping- “We could transmit all the on-board and communications integrity and
companies that is researching how Hepenstal said. “If we take the pilots data to the ground pilot, but there security. The programme team is
unmanned aircraft might be allowed out, we have to be able to replicate would be a lot of it,” Dopping- working with the aerospace industry’s
to operate safely in non-segregated the tasks that are done by them.” Hepenstal said. “We have limited new Aerospace Technology Institute
airspace. ASTRAEA is not talking To some degree, this can be achieved bandwidth and we also have to allow as well as regulatory bodies in the
about dropping the pilot from regular by transferring some of the pilot’s for the possibility of losing the link UK, Europe and beyond. Technology
scheduled passenger flights, Dopping- responsibilities to a ground-based and for aircraft technical failures. innovations, Dopping-Hepenstal said,
Hepenstal stressed. Rather, there pilot, perhaps sitting alongside air For that reason, we need to transfer are only part of it, there are also legal
are a wide range of applications in traffic control, but some will have to some of the pilot’s intelligence into and societal issues that need to be
areas such as telecommunications, remain in the aircraft. the aircraft itself, our autonomous addressed.
agriculture, and search and rescue, system.”
where unmanned aircraft can take Last year, the ASTRAEA project flew a
advantage of longer endurance and small turboprop aircraft under ground
an ability to operate in hazardous control from BAE Systems’ Warton
environments as they are not carrying base in Lancashire to Inverness, using
a pilot on board. Already, there are the commercial airways. There were
examples of small-scale unmanned safety pilots on board, but the flight “If we take the pilots out, we have to be able to
Agricultural
aircraft being used in restricted areas was controlled from the ground. replicate the tasks that are done by them.”
monitoring
with unmanned
aircraft
© Callen-Lenz
“Weight is a key factor in today’s industry, and Composites are also an important “We can look at other functions as
technology in terms of meeting other well by bringing metallic elements
composites have a role to play in taking weight out.” requirements, Hancock said. “Weight such as aluminium into the composite
Lower weight can be equated directly to savings in is a key factor in today’s industry, construction,” Hancock said.
and composites have a role to play in Resistance to physical phenomena
both fuel usage and emissions taking weight out.” Lower weight can such as lightning strikes, erosion,
be equated directly to savings in both bird strikes and thermal performance
fuel usage and emissions. might be built in, but there is scope
too to design composites specifically
Technologies such as carbon for other factors, such as their
nanotubes and high temperature manufacturability.
resins offered potential for weight-
6. Innovation in
saving within their own right. But This kind of thinking could go further
Meggitt is looking beyond the material still. If a new layer within a composite
gains that can be made to a new material is a sensor of some kind,
ASTRAEA programme
Speakers
www.astraea.aero
Paul Everitt
Chief Executive, ADS Group
Autonomous Systems
Social, Legal and Ethical Issues Sébastien Remy
www.raeng.org.uk/news/publications/list/reports/Autonomous_ Head of Airbus Group Innovations
Systems_Report_09.pdf David Stewart
Head of Flight Sciences, Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd
David Hawken
Engineering Director Operations, NATS
Lambert Dopping-Hepenstal FREng
Programme Director, ASTRAEA
Mark Hancock
Chief Engineer, Meggitt Polymers and Composites
Alan Newby
Chief Engineer – Future Programmes & Technology, Rolls-Royce