Airbus Encourages Revolutionary Aviation Ideas For Student Contest
Posted on: Thursday, 7 May 2009, 15:06 CDT
Airbus, a unit of EADS, is sponsoring a global competition for new concepts in aircraft design and engineering, Reuters reported.
The European plane maker is offering just over $40,000 for the best idea drawn from proposals submitted by 2,350 students in 82 countries.
The contest was launched in order to challenge students to seek innovative and green-friendly ideas that could ultimately shape the future of aviation.
If Airbus accepts the advice of tomorrow's potential aircraft engineers, tourists heading south for the winter may be transported to their dream destination in windowless airliners flying in formation like geese.
Such ideas submitted by students may not at first glance appeal to the traveling public, but a spokeswoman for Airbus said the imaginative proposals could lead to useful ways of thinking about new aircraft designs.
The company announced on Thursday it had narrowed down the entries to five.
One Spanish university proposed a windowless cabin, as the designers have found that an aircraft constructed this way would be more eco-efficient.
An Australian team from the University of Queensland proposed building some of the materials used in the cabin out of castor plant natural fibers, Airbus said.
Finalists from Singapore want to tap solar power for electricity, while a Czech proposal would use electric motors to taxi the airplane, which would burn less jet fuel.
Airbus said one of the more revolutionary concepts included a proposal by Stanford University students to adapt the “V” formation used by geese and other migrating birds to fly long distances.
Birds in the “V” formation are able to conserve more energy by slipstreaming behind the bird in front of them
Airbus said in a review of the final shortlist that the Stanford proposal calls for an inverted V formation, building on the model of migrating birds to reduce energy consumption.
Airbus spokeswoman Anne Galabert said the idea was not necessarily something they would exploit, but the approach was interesting and the analysis was of high quality.
In order to reduce the risk of collision and prevent turbulence from the wingtips of planes directly in front of them, minimum distances are used to separate some passenger planes.
Galabert said conventional studies are based on the ordinary V formation, but the innovation here is that the students are looking at a backwards V.
A jury at the Paris Air Show will judge the finalists’ presentations in June.
Despite the current recession forcing the company to cut 10,000 jobs, Airbus is trying to recruit 300 new engineers this year to help complete complex new projects.
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Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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User Comments (1)
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Posted by Steven Sullivan on 05/10/2009, 00:33 Its already been patented by Delos Aerospace |
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