Etihad participates in Boeing’s sustainable flight programme
Dubai: An Etihad Airways 787-10 Dreamliner decked out with special equipment meant for enhanced safety and lower CO2 emissions and noise has commenced flight testing this week for US plane-maker Boeing’s ecoDemonstrator programme, the airline said in a statement on Wednesday.
A series of flights will gather the most detailed information to date about aircraft acoustics from some 1,200 microphones attached to the outside of the 787 and positioned on the ground. The programme, which is a collaboration between NASA and Boeing, will improve the space agency’s aircraft noise prediction capabilities, advance ways for pilots to reduce noise and inform future quiet aircraft designs.
NASA has been “researching the individual airplane noise sources, their interactions with the airframe and how they combine to the total aircraft noise,” said Russell Thomas, NASA technical lead. “This unique, carefully designed flight test provides the environment where all these effects are measured, which will be key to advancing our ability to design lower-noise aircraft.”
This is the latest initiative under Etihad and Boeing’s partnership, which focuses on innovating real-world solutions to the key sustainability challenges facing the aviation industry. This is the first time the program is using a Boeing 787-10 since flight testing began in 2012.
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