This is about an exciting potential development in aviation, but it’s also a bout the awesome power of acronyms. Hold tight: by the end of this article you’ll be familiar with RISE1, CFM2, OFELIA3, SWITCH4, SAF5, SNECMA6. So…
Airbus has announced it is partnering with CFM, the engine maker, to develop RISE, an open-fan jet engine, which is the propeller-engine near-lookalike you see in the picture. The idea is that be essentially removing the cowling from around the fans that are the major part of a jet engine it will be possible to improve fuel economy without losing the speed of a traditional turbofan engine.
The project, which should fly tests within the next few years, will use an A380 because it’s a four-engine plane, because it has immense internal capacity for testing equipment, and because there are quite a few sitting around with no other use.
The research is funded in part through a European Union Grant to OFELIA, aiming to support lower fuel use and a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions. The engine design, known as SWITCH, hopes to demonstrate hybrid-electric and heat-recovery technologies to save about 25% in fuel, in part by using batteries or fuel cells, as well as allowing increased use of SAF.
- 1RISE—Revolutionary Innovation for Sustainable Engines
- 2CFM—CF for Commercial Fan (from General Electric); the M is from M56 (SNECMA). GE and SNECMA merged their engine projects to form CFM (but see 6, below)
- 3OFELIA—Open Fan for Low Impact of Aviation
- 4SWITCH—Sustainable Water Injecting Turbofan Comprising Hybrid-Electrics
- 5SAF—Sustainable Aviation Fuel
- 6SNECMA—Partner with GE in CFM aircraft engines, but now re-named Safran; its original full name was Société nationale d’études et de construction de moteurs d’aviation
