Green Jet Designed by British Company

British low-cost airline easyJet has unveiled a design for a radically different-looking short-haul airliner that it says would be highly environmentally friendly and could be built by 2015.

EasyJet said its design—which it dubbed the “easyJet ecoJet”— would be 25 percent quieter and would emit 50 percent less carbon dioxide (CO2) and 75 percent less nitrous oxide (NOx) than today’s newest short-haul airliners.

“The lightweight structure and open-rotor engines are based on technologies that are being developed right now by the major manufacturers. The easyJet ecoJet is realistic and it is achievable,” he added.


SOURCE:
Live Science

I am very glad to see that this kind of development is being made, since jets,
especially short hall flights are major producers of GHG's and are generally bad
for the environment.

Hopefully this will be implemented.


Comments, Opinions?

[edit on 6/15/2007 by iori_komei]

This is nothing new if you'll excuse the pun. McDonnell Douglas developed the Unducted fan design in the early Eighties. For a variety of reasons it was not taken up. Embraer attempted to re-introduce it in about 1993 with the EMB-123 commuter airliner but there was huge resistance to Unducted Fans.

The other issue which I suspect this design is trying to introduce is a lightweight carbonfibre fuselage. The Beechcraft Starship broke new ground on this technology and after selling about thirty aircraft is attempting a recall and destruction of all remaining airframes. The issue is that unbonding of the Carbonfibre laminates has caused such a potential liability issue that it was cheaper to buy the whole fleet back.

I am not saying this project is doomed. What i do say is that there are an awful lot of issues and hurdles to overcome.

The real promise for jet engine efficiency is the Pratt & Whitney PW8000 geared turbofan. This uses a tiny gas turbine engine driving a huge low pressure fan through a variable ratio gearbox.

The tiny engine can be run at it's optimum revolution range at all times, which is something a modern jet can only do at higher altitudes.

i really hope this is created, and used simply because it looks post-modern. that and we really need some green jets around.

An extract from a website about end of world scenarios, this one is from Global Dimming which is a real problem.

Then came 9-11. In the days following the terrorist attacks, air traffic was grounded. This led to a sudden, remarkable change in American weather. For three days, it was unusually sunny in the US. The nights were exceptionally bright. On average, it got one degree Celsius warmer in the US during those days. That doesn’t sound like much -- but it’s huge, in terms of climatology: the biggest jump in temperature ever witnessed.
Link