Regional Multi-Mission Aircraft in Clean Sky 2: Environmental Impact and Actual Technologies Evaluation from Flight Tests

Abstract

Airbus Defence and Space, former CASA, has lead the Regional Multi-mission aircraft configuration in the Clean Sky 2 program. The set of technologies selected for this platform have been matured with the support of multiple partners across Europe by means of theoretical studies, tests in laboratories, full scale on ground demonstration in rigs and in flight demonstration in the Regional Flight Test Bed 2 (FTB#2) platform based on an Airbus C295 aircraft. These technologies cover multiple aspects of the aircraft design, manufacturing and operations like innovative materials, systems architectures towards a more electrical aircraft, affordable flight control system devoted to control multiple control surfaces in the wing and new manufacturing and assembly processes. The outputs of the research are taken to evaluate the environmental impact in terms of gaseous emissions (fuel consumption, CO2 and NOx) and noise reduction in take-off and landing of future aircraft with respect of the reference configuration defined at the beginning of Clean Sky 2 program. This paper describes the environmental impact in future Regional Multi-mission configurations and the technology evaluation done with the flight test campaign of the Regional FTB#2 in 2022. The flight test campaign is a cornerstone milestone of the program to demonstrate the most mature technologies.