Rolls-Royce has announced a new partnership with Boeing and Lufthansa to conduct flight tests utilising innovations aimed at both improving fuel efficiency and reduce noise.
The testing, which will begin later this month at the Boeing site in Glasgow, Montana, will be conducted on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner jet currently serving as Boeing’s 2026 ecoDemonstrator Explorer airplane.
Once delivered to Lufthansa, testing on the flights will be made up of trials of the Next Generation Inlet, a reduced-length engine inlet demonstrator with advanced acoustic treatments which is hoped to enable the integration of more fuel-efficient engines onto future platforms; and modified departure and arrival procedures, including Intelligent Operations flight paths, which aim to reduce community noise around airports.
The inlet is also hoped to reduce weight as well as drag whilst maintaining acoustic performance.
Boeing Chief Technology Officer Lane Ballard said:Boeing works tirelessly to deliver the aerospace innovations of today and tomorrow.
The more efficient inlet and Intelligent Operations flight paths we’re evaluating on this year’s ecoDemonstrator Explorer are among the many promising concepts we’re working on. These enhancements have the potential to make our airplanes even more valuable to our partners, including customers like Lufthansa and suppliers like Rolls-Royce.
All innovations being tested are part of Phase III of the Federal Aviation Administration’s CLEEN (Continuous Lower Energy, Emissions and Noise) programme, which will see CLEEN work with industry to both test and develop technologies that will enable manufacturers to create airplanes and engines with benefits such as improved fuel efficiency and reduced noise.
The Boeing ecoDemonstrator programme has been used in an attempt to accelerate innovation since 2012, testing more than 260 technologies to date.
