Environmentally Friendly Flight Boldly Goes [03.09.07]An environmentally-friendly flying disc is one of the concepts being considered by researchers at Delft Unversity in the Netherlands as they design an airliner for 2025 and beyond.
European engineers working on the passenger plane of the future are reaching back into Canada's aviation history and focusing on an aircraft reminiscent of a flying saucer-style design tested in the 1950s by a Toronto-area firm.
Next month, the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, one of the largest aerospace engineering schools in Europe, will launch an international project to design the passenger plane for 2025 and beyond.
Engineers are concentrating on making the futuristic aircraft the most environmentally friendly airliner that can be conceived. The research project will continue until 2011 and look at designs capable of reducing noise and greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 per cent.
The initiative has been dubbed CleanEra, which stands for cost-effective,
low-emission and noise-efficient regional aircraft. The medium-sized plane would
be capable of carrying 125 passengers.
Although the design is not yet final, it's expected the researchers will shelve the traditional cylinder-style fuselage, outfitted with wings, in favour of a flying disc-type aircraft.
...the David Suzuki Foundation, point out that although aviation is a relatively small industry, it has a disproportionately large impact on the climate. The foundation estimates the industry accounts for four to nine per cent of the "total climate change impact of human activity."
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