The aviation industry in 85 years

When the Wright brothers flew their plane ‘The Flyer’ in 1903, little did they realise that in 50 years’ time their small and fragile aircraft would have been replaced by jet aircrafts and airlines would be flying passengers across the Atlantic. So, it takes a lot of imagination to visualise where the aviation industry might be 85 years from now.

Just as for the Wright brothers, it is almost impossible for us to forecast what technological breakthroughs might be available for aviation in 2093.

However, what we can do today is ensure that the right frameworks are in place to achieve those breakthroughs. We need to foster co-operation and sharing of information across all branches of the industry. We must provide adequate funding for research and development. We must encourage innovation and pioneering research far beyond current market needs. In short, we must all have visions.

What if we were to hitch a ride on the time machine of H.G. Wells and travel 85 years into the future? What will the world be like in 2093? What will the climate be like? Will the world look much as it does today?

And what about the aviation industry? What will passenger demand look like in 2093? Will people still want to travel around the globe and across the oceans? Will air travel be affordable?

When we look back from 2093 at aviation today, what will we see? What will we be saying about fuel efficiency in 85 years? Was IATA’s 2007 environmental vision realised? Did we build that zero-emissions aircraft by 2057? What could we have done better or differently?

In 2093, what will aircraft look like? What form of propulsion will they use? Will oil have run out? What sort of fuel will the planes use? How many manufacturers will there be? How many airlines?

What will the aviation industry look like in 85 years’ time from the environmental standpoint? Will the problems we are seeing now be solved by the last part of the century, or will they be replaced by a new set of challenges?

In the last four decades, fuel efficiency increased 70 per cent, and it will improve a further 25 per cent by 2020. In 2007, IATA articulated a vision for a carbon-free future and developed a fourpillar strategy to mitigate aviation’s climate change impact – investing in technology, flying planes more efficiently, building and operating an efficient infrastructure, and developing positive economic instruments such as tax credits and funding of Research and Development. Of these, technology – including research and investment in biofuels – is a key element of our vision for a carbon-free future.

Technology is a major driver of progress

Technology is the only way to zero emissions. The challenge is to build better planes and more efficient engines powered by non-carbon sources. Some of the potential building blocks already exist – solar power, hydrogen cells, and biofuels.

Let us board the time machine. Aviation’s tubular jet age ran for about 100 years, from the mid-twentieth to the midtwenty-first century. Planes followed a standard design of a tubular fuselage with wings and tail plane. But by the middle of the twenty-first century, the rules were changing, and we began to see completely new configurations. Some were more successful than others.

The blended-wing plane was hailed as a major breakthrough and improved efficiency by 30 per cent. It had the space to carry the large tanks needed for its liquid hydrogen propulsion on top of the aircraft. This was the first plane to carry more than 1,000 passengers. But passengers didn’t really take to it at first. They felt claustrophobic sitting in the very wide centre body without access to windows. However, the modified version, incorporating advanced lighting and screen technology for the interior, satisfied customer expectations. The screens provided a view outside the plane, and the experience was like floating over the clouds.

At the other end of the scale, aeroplanes geared for a quiet, short takeoff and landing catered to the change in airline network structures that saw traffic shift to a distributed framework. This aircraft type provided the ability to operate from runways that were being used primarily by small regional aircraft. This enabled better use of many existing airports, reducing holding and taxi times. These aircraft can operate from runways as short as 500 metres and cruise at similar speed to conventional passenger aircraft. Introduction of new propulsion wing technologies and incorporation of electric power elements have significantly reduced noise and enhanced the performance of these short-range aircraft.

Lightweight, corrosion-resistant and stronger materials also led to significant fuel efficiency gains. In the first quarter of the twenty-first century, carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) became popular. This material is stronger and stiffer than metals such as aluminium, titanium, or steel, but its density is half that of aluminium and one fifth that of steel.

Fibre metal laminates provided even more capabilities. They comprise a central layer of fibre metal laminate sandwiched between one or more thick layers of highquality aluminium. This technique, used for fuselage skin and aircraft wing applications, proved stronger than CFRP, allowing a further 20 per cent weight reduction when compared to CFRP constructions.

It was not only in airframe development that advances in materials were made. The development of lightweight composite materials with high-temperature tolerance in engines not only reduced weight but also allowed higher operating temperatures and greater combustion efficiency, both of which led to reduced fuel consumption.

In 2093, aeroplanes are powered by biofuels via biomass-to-fuel-conversion technologies using sources such as algae, halophytes, babassu, switchgrass, and jatropha. The transition to economically viable and environmentally progressive renewables took time and effort, but the use of biofuels has given us many years already of a carbon-free industry.

Algae have become a main source of biomass for biojets. These simple plants are grown in polluted water or salt water that would not normally be drinkable or usable for growing crops. They thrive off carbon dioxide, which makes them excellent at sequestering carbon. They have proved able to provide the large volume of bio-oil needed to fuel the fleet. Biofuels like this do not compete for land with food crops. Once algae were certified as a safe and effective fuel source, production was ramped up. Now, in 2093, we see algae farms all over the world in deserts and other areas that would not otherwise be used.

Another carbon-free breakthrough of the 2050s was the use of hydrogen in planes. This took a lot of work to develop and was not without its problems. Although hydrogen is a very power-dense fuel, a great deal of space is required to store it, even in its liquid state. The storage tanks necessary to store the large volume of cryogenically cooled hydrogen increased the weight of large aeroplanes by 13 per cent.

In the early part of the twenty-first century, manufacturers thought the idea impractical, but by the 2050s, with significant technological advances, the first hydrogen-powered passenger planes were flying, enabling IATA to celebrate the achievement of its goal of building an emissions-free plane by 2057.

When Bertrand Picard completed his first round-the-world flight in 2009 purely on solar power with his ‘Solar Impulse’ aircraft, many sceptics played down the role of photovoltaic cells for aviation. By the middle of the century, however, photovoltaic panels on the wings of aircraft were powering on-board computers and auxiliary control equipment. Further developments in lithium- microfilm and lithium-nanowire technologies coupled with major advances in battery weight reduction to allow our shortrange aircraft to fly as they do now – almost entirely on electrical power.

Efficient flying

At the beginning of the century, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) estimated that sorting out inefficient aircraft operations could cut fuel and carbon dioxide emissions by up to six per cent.

Advanced satellite technology has enabled planes to fly as effectively as possible, using the most fuel-efficient routes. Improvements in CNS (communications, navigation, and surveillance) and ATM (air traffic management) systems enabled flight paths to be optimised to reduce travel distances. Continuous-descent approaches (CDAs) became the norm: Advanced modern electronics and new technology enabled aircraft to handle larger approach angles.

Infrastructure improvements presented a major opportunity for fuel and carbon dioxide reductions throughout the twenty-first century. In the early part of the century, the IPCC identified 12 per cent inefficiency in infrastructure, particularly in air traffic management. In the European Union area there were more than 30 separate air traffic control entities. Nonetheless, eventually a successful ‘Single European Sky’ was launched, cutting back by some 16 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year.

Consolidation of ATM spread to other parts of the world as well. By 2025, the transition from voice link to data link was completed. This meant that computers no longer provided data to humans who communicated to each other via VHF voice transmission; instead, they were linked directly to each other via a network of satellites operating to a globally agreed standard.

As passenger numbers rose, airports became more congested, with a knock-on effect on the environment. Back in the early part of the century, passengers boarded aircraft by means of a gate from the airport departure lounge. That was before Pod- Travel transformed the travel experience. Manufacturers improved on an idea originally developed for the Beluga Airbus transport aircraft, whereby the plane was configured as just an empty shell and the cabin was a separate entity that was then loaded onto the empty fuselage tube. Passengers board at their leisure, entering the cabin at the airport, and the cabin is then loaded into the aircraft.

Back to the present

We have looked at just a few of the developments that we might see in 85 years’ time to help the industry become carbon-free. Although no-one can predict the future, there certainly are some exciting possibilities out there. To make them reality, we need vision, commitment, co operation, and accelerated funding of Research and Development. Look how far the industry has come in the last 85 years. We believe that our visions for the future can become reality in the next 85 years.

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