Travel Environment Watch.

New York (AirGuide - Travel Environment Watch) May 17, 2009

All large aircraft operators by Aug. 31 2009 that intend to fly in European airspace after Jan. 1, 2012, must file Monitoring, Reporting and Verification [MRV] procedures for computing the precise quantity of CO2 their aircraft emit on each flight and their plans to offset the effects of those carbon emissions, according to Brian Humphries, CBE, president of the European Business Aviation Association. Humphries believes that most U.S. business aircraft operators aren't aware of the MRV filing deadline that is a prerequisite for flying in European airspace in 2012 and beyond. If operators don't file by the deadline, they'll be banned from European airspace after 2011, he said. Humphries said that in 2008 the Council of the European Union enacted a directive that requires operators of applicable aircraft that land or depart from European airports to comply with the EU's carbon offset Emissions Trading Scheme starting in 2012. ETS will apply to virtually all business aircraft operating in European airspace because of the amount of CO2 they emit. Filing MRV procedures provides the European Communities with assurance that aircraft operators will comply with its Emissions Trading Scheme carbon offset mandate in 2012, and beyond. May 14, 2009

European business aviation is pressing ahead with a move to better balance potentially huge and unnecessary costs of administering carbon trading. The Lisbon Strategy, the European Union's own action plan designed to make it the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world, was never going to sit comfortably with the impact of carbon trading on aviation's more modest emitters. At the heart of the 2000 blueprint was a commitment to Europe's smallest businesses to reduce additional administrative burdens coming from new EU regulations such as environmentally targeted market-based measures. That is why the move by the European Commission to wrap business aviation into the EU Emissions Trading Scheme from 2012 has met with such keen resistance, with its champions claiming that a one-size-fits-all approach is tantamount to regulatory slaughter. May 11, 2009

Aerion

Aerion supersonic business jet may face stiff opposition from green activists. Aerion Corporation claims to be having "serious and detailed discussions" with airframe OEMs, but it has yet to find a partner to manufacture its $80 million, Mach 1.6, 4,000 nmi range supersonic business jet. Virtually all potential partners are hunkered down, weathering record economic headwinds, so they're unlikely to step up to take on any new high-risk development program, regardless of its apparent technical merits. Meanwhile, Aerion is continuing development work, including evaluation of its supersonic NLF airfoil aboard a NASA Dryden F-15B Eagle and acoustical tests of various seven-percent scale engine nozzles. Aerion now claims the aircraft can be flown at speeds up to 1.15 Mach without creating a sonic boom on the ground. This is due to the 1.15 ratio of the speed of sound in the stratosphere to the speed of sound on the earth's surface. Sonic velocity is 574 kts at -56.5A[degrees]C, the standard atmosphere temperature in the stratosphere, and 661 kts at sea level, assuming a 15A[degrees]C standard temperature. Long term, the 8-12-passenger Aerion supersonic business jet may face stiff opposition from green activists in Europe because of its carbon footprint. While it will cruise twice as fast as today's .80 Mach business jets, it will burn roughly the same fuel as a 19-passenger BBJ on a 4,000 nmi trip. Aerion maintains it has 50 orders resulting in a $4-billion backlog reported AWST. May 13, 2009

CFM International, Continental Airlines, Boeing

CFM International President and CEO Eric Bachelet said that the Continental Airlines Boeing 737-800 that operated a test flight early this year with one of its CFM56-7B engines powered by a biofuel blend including algae oil and jatropha oil performed well and predicted that such blends "will be a significant component of the fuel used" by commercial aviation within 5-7 years. "By the middle of the next decade, you will start to see biofuels used by the industry," he said in an interview this week in Peebles, Ohio. "If you want [commercial aviation] to be sustainable in the medium-to-long future, you can only go so far with improving engine performance. . .and so you have to come to biofuel," he said, adding that producing biofuel to power flights is "becoming more of a supply issue than a technology issue." He noted that testing has revealed no aircraft engine hardware changes that would be necessary to accommodate biofuel reported ATW. May 15, 2009

Rolls-Royce

The use of lean manufacturing principles at the earliest stages of design is the focus of a four-year, EUR7.6 million (USD 10.1 million) European Union project. Called Lean Product and Process Development, or LeanPPD, the work is to enable the implementing of lean enterprise principles throughout the entire product lifecycle from design to disposal and reuse. A pan-industrial project with 12 members including research centres, academia and industry, its aerospace partner is Rolls-Royce. "For an enterprise to improve performance and ultimately cost savings there is a need for the whole organisation to undergo a lean transformation. This will provide the basis for the development of a knowledge-based environment to support...sustainable and affordable products," says LeanPPD technical committee chairman and Cranfield University knowledge management course director Ahmed Al-Ashaab. The project is funded under the EU seventh framework programme and it is being co-ordinated by Spanish research centre Labein. May 11, 2009

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