Top 5

Air Cargo Middle East & India surveys the five new technologies on which airfreight professionals should keep a close eye during 2009.

Category: Engines, Avionics & Radar

Companies: Pratt & Whitney, BAE Systems, FedEx, DeTect Inc

A product that is creating considerable interest as a result of the recent incident on the Hudson River is Florida-based DeTect Inc's Merlin Aircraft Birdstrike Avoidance radar system. DeTect executives were actually scheduled to attend conferences in Dubai and Abu Dhabi at the end of February, but the La Guardia accident meant that they were required to give evidence before the US Congress.

The product, originally designed for the US air force, was developed to track the unique characteristics of bird movement and uses a dual horizontal and vertical scanning radar configuration to provide simultaneous 3D coverage of all areas around an airport up to 10,000 feet above ground level and up to eight miles distant.

Conventional HUDs (Heads Up Displays) are able to help pilots by providing flight and sensor information in the pilot's forward field of view. However, BAE Systems' Q-HUD does not require cumbersome and expensive projection systems on the cockpit ceiling.

In addition, as the image emanates from within the container, rather than being reflected onto it, there is no projected light path that pilot's head can obstruct - a particular benefit for smaller cockpits, such as those on feeder-route freight aircraft.

FedEx is also in the process of developing its own HUD system, which provides a high-resolution liquid crystal display of critical flight guidance information, which is overlaid with real-time infrared video of the outside world. This is particularly helpful during take-off and landing. The US express firm won FAA certification for the product last year and testing is ongoing.

Despite the fact that the winner of this category will not be available this year, it is tough to overlook Pratt & Whitney (P&W)'s PurePower PW1000G geared turbofan engine. One of the major concerns of last year was the constantly fluctuating fuel price, and an engine that can significantly reduce the amount of fuel being used is one that will be looked at closely by airlines that are looking to save costs.

P&W claims that the PW1000G is the only new engine technology available for commercial aircraft that will enter service in the next 10 years, and that it will be able to deliver a 15% reduction in fuel burn at an engine level, with a 20-25% reduction when installed in a next-generation jet.

"Compared to today's competing aircraft, that is a guaranteed saving of 215 gallons of fuel per flight, 1,150 gallons per day, and 413,000 gallons per year," says Greg Brostowicz, communications manager for P&W Commercial Engines & Global Services.

"That's more than 100 average tanker trucks every year for each aircraft." Wedded to lower fuel usage is a decline in environmental emissions and, of course, a decrease in cost, with jet fuel in recent times costing as much as a third of an individual airline's budget.

But what sets this engine apart from the others currently flying the world's airline fleets today? Jet engines are driven by air being forced through the large fan; the less fuel that is needed to push the air through the engine, the more efficient that engine will be. Conventional turbofan engines link a fan and a turbine with a shaft that runs through the centre of the engine. As the fan grows larger, the turbine must also grow larger to create enough power to drive that fan.

"However, the PW1000G engine uses a reduction gear box to disconnect the fan from the turbine, so that each unit can turn at its optimum speed," explains Brostowicz. "Our engine manages to turn a small turbine very fast, which allows it to drive a much larger fan slowly, and fast turbines are far more efficient than slower ones."

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