GRA (2008-2016)

Green Regional Aircraft

Regional market is a large part of Air Transport System. Today, in the world, 45% of flights are operated with regional aircraft, and in 2020 the share is estimated to rise to around 50%.
A substantial contribution to the “Clean Sky” shall then come from the Regional Air Transport that, to drastically reduce the environmental impact all around, has to adopt innovative solutions in several technology domains.
Specific consideration of regional transport requirements will lead to products more optimised for the specific needs of this market segment. Environmental impact reduction will be a very important factor in shaping the technology content of future products, along with the fuel cost increase that pushes towards more efficient aircraft solutions.
According to ACARE goals, a large portion of the achievement should come from the airframe. Considering the fields directly under the responsibility of the aircraft manufacturer, step changes to improve the impact on the environment deriving from the operation of regional aircraft are expected from weight and noise reduction technologies, as well as from the integration of advanced technologies belonging to other domains.
The resulting products for the regional market segment of the 2020’s will need to be substantially different from today offer, using a large share of technologies non conventional by today standards, and possibly with an overall configuration quite different from aircraft flying today.
Being able to integrate in a future advanced regional aircraft the key green technologies demonstrated in Clean Sky will allow the full return of Europe as world leader also in the regional aircraft segment currently dominated by non-European actors, with the only exception of the ATR turboprop.

Coordinator
Alenia Aeronautica S.p.A. (Italy)

Other participants
ALMA MATER STUDIORUM – UNIVERSITA’ DI BOLOGNA
- Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale-DIN
- Resp. Scientifico: Dott.ssa Francesca De Crescenzio
Alenia Aermacchi S.p.A. (Italy)
Alenia SIA S.p.A. (Italy)
Alenia Improvement (Italy)
EADS Construcciones Aeronauticas SA (CASA), Sociedad Unipersonal (Spain)
Thales Avionics SA (France)
Thales Avionics Electrical Systems SA (France)
Piaggio Aero Industries S.p.A. (Italy)
Centro Sviluppo Materiali-CSM S.p.A. (Italy)
Distretto Tecnologico sull’Ingegneria dei Materiali Polimerici e Compositi e Strutture-IMAST S.c.a.r.l. (Italy)
Fox Bit S.r.l. (Italy)
Politecnico Di Torino (Italy)
SICAMB S.p.A. (Italy)
Hellenic Aerospace Industry Sa (Greece)
Onera-Office National d’Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales (France)
Università Degli Studi Di Napoli “Federico II” (Italy)
Università Degli Studi Di Pisa (Italy)
Avions de Transport Régional (GIE-Groupement d’intéret Economique)-ATR (France)
Aerosoft S.p.A. (Italy)
Dema S.p.A. (Italy)
Institutul National de Cercetari Aerospatiale “Elie Carafoli”-INCAS S.A. (Romania)
ELSIS U.A.B. (Lithuania)
Superjet International (Italy & Russian Federation)
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft Zur Foerderung Der Angewandten Forschung E.V. (Germany)
Liebherr-Aerospace Toulouse S.A.S. (France)
Rolls-Royce Plc (UK)
Rolls-Royce Deutschland Ltd & Co KG (Germany)
Safran (France)
Hispano-Suiza (France)
Messier-Dowty SA (France)
Snecma (France)

Start date 01/06/2008
End date 31/12/2016
Duration 97 months
Project Reference CSJU-GAM-GRA-2008-001
Area FP7- JTI-CLEAN SKY (TRANSPORT)
Subprogramme Area Green Regional Aircraft
Contract type Joint Technology Initiatives - Clean Sky