Civil Aviation Technologies To Watch In 2016

If the FAA releases its long-delayed final Small UAS rule as promised by June 2016, it will only come under intensifying market pressure to expand the rule’s constraints and allow flights at night and beyond the operator’s visual line of sight, aided by technologies including cellular connectivity and low-power automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B). The FAA’s Pathfinder program is already testing urban and beyond-line-of-sight operations. The agency, meanwhile, will task standards developer RTCA to bring together stakeholders and recommend how airspace below 400 ft., including over cities, should be managed and shared by unmanned and manned aircraft.

Saab hopes to conduct a live test of its remote tower for the FAA in spring 2016, at a general aviation airport in Leesburg, Virginia. The technology allows virtual towers at smaller airports to be controlled from a remote tower center some distance away. The U.S. is lagging behind Europe in embracing the concept. Sweden began full-time operations of the world’s first remote tower in April 2015, and Ireland, Germany, Norway and Hungary also have programs in place. Virtual towers could be used as backups to primary towers and to replace existing facilities at lower cost, with multiple towers controlled from the same center.

Increased scrutiny on aircraft survivability following the terrorist bombing of Metrojet Flight 9268 could provide impetus to commercialize blast-resistant, textile-based baggage containers developed under Europe’s Fly-Bag research program, completed in September 2015. Unlike the heavy and costly blast-hardened metal containers tested in the late 1990s, Fly-Bag uses a combination of fabrics with high strength and impact and heat resistance. In narrowbodies, the material can be used to line the cargo hold, while in widebodies the bag would fit the standard baggage container or pallet. Developers say cost and weight penalties over conventional containers are minimal.

Global flight tracking will be in the spotlight in 2016. After the loss of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in 2014 and Air France Flight 447 in 2009, the International Civil Aviation Organization has proposed a requirement for commercial airliners to report position every 15 min., to take effect in November 2016 using current technology. But an advisory group has recommended a delay to 2018 for further evaluation. This coincides with planned availability of Aireon’s space-based ADS-B tracking system using Iridium Next satellites that begin launching in April 2016. In November 2015, the International Telecommunications Union allocated spectrum for global flight tracking using space-based ADS-B.

Europe’s exploration of open-rotor engines to reduce fuel consumption and emissions will lead to Snecma’s Counter-Rotating Open Rotor (CROR) ground demonstrator running on an open-air test stand at Istres, France, in the summer of 2016. But even as it looks toward flight tests in the early 2020s under the Clean Sky 2 research program, Europe’s efforts to demonstrate geared turbofans are stepping up. Under Clean Sky 2, Rolls-Royce will demonstrate its UltraFan large geared-turbofan for widebodies around 2021. Snecma will test its geared Ultra High Propulsive Efficiency engine for narrowbodies, while MTU will continue its work on Pratt & Whitney’s second-generation GTF.

With engineering support from Airbus Group and a firm order for 20 aircraft from fractional-ownership operator Flexjet, Aerion says it is on track to launch its AS2 supersonic business jet by mid-2016. First flight is planned for 2021; service entry for 2023. A propulsion system will be selected in the first half of 2016, based on an existing core engine. The trijet is designed to fly at Mach 0.95-0.98 over land, to avoid sonic booms, and up to Mach 1.5 over water and where supersonic flight is permitted. Airbus is designing the structure, fly-by-wire and other systems and will provide major components for assembly by Aerion.

Fly-by-wire (FBW) continues to conquer civil aviation. Bell Helicopter will certify its first FBW commercial helicopter, the 525, in 2016, and Textron sister company Cessna will expand use of the technology as it moves from the Citation Longitude to fly in 2017 to the Hemisphere in 2019. Gulfstream has gone full fly-by-wire, with active sidesticks, on the G500/G600, and the Global 7000, which will fly in 2016, is Bombardier’s first FBW business jet. Airbus Helicopters is in conceptual design on its first FBW product, the heavy X6 for the 2020s. The holdout is general aviation, because of cost, but Diamond Aircraft flight tested a certifiable FBW system for light aircraft in 2015 with European research funding.

Electrification of aviation propulsion is starting small but accelerating. Slovenia’s Pipistrel introduced the Alpha Electro trainer in 2015, and Airbus Group plans to begin delivering the E-Fan 2.0 two-seater—its batteries powering dual ducted-fans—in late 2017, the four-seat hybrid-electric E-Fan 4.0 to follow in two years. Diamond Aircraft is working with Siemens, motor supplier to Pipistrel and Airbus, on a hybrid based on its four-seat DA40, with a single diesel engine generating power for twin electric props. The company has a concept for a four-rotor hybrid-electric tiltrotor, while NASA is studying a 9-seat thin-haul commuter.