Electric Innovative Commuter Aircraft The ELICA research project activities are focused on the conceptual design of a 19 passengers commuter aircraft based on alternative propulsion concepts, targeting near-zero CO2 emissions. The project aligns with the environmental expectations of the European Commission towards the aeronautical industry formulated in Flightpath 2050 , and is in line with the economic objectives of the European Commission to safeguard high-quality jobs in the aerospace sectors by strengthening the technological leadership and the competitiveness of the European’s aerospace industry. The high-level objective of ELICA is to provide a concept design of a 19 passenger commuter aircraft with new zero-emissions with respect to CO2, NOx, and noise. The concept should be: • environmentally friendly, i.e. with measurable reduction in estimated emission values; • economically feasible, i.e. the aircraft requirements are derived from the market demands; • and technologically innovative, i.e. the flexibility in the aircraft design space provided by new propulsion technologies should be explored and exploited. The final concept design will pave the way to an innovative aircraft demonstrator. It will be an important step stone to strengthen the technology leadership of the European aeronautical industry, in the global race for the next-generation efficient commuter aircraft for regional mobility.

The GENESIS project will gauge the environmental sustainability of electric aircraft (A/C) in a life-cycle-based, foresight perspective to support the development of a technology roadmap for transitioning towards sustainable and competitive electric A/C systems. The focus is on regional class, 50 pax aircraft to identify, design and assess prospectively the best energy storage and transmission topology. Different alternatives within battery, fuel cell, hybrid and conventional powertrain technologies are evaluated and compared over different time horizons. To meet these objectives and scoping, GENESIS relies on a strong consortium of 10 partners – 5 world-leading research partners, 4 R&D-active SMEs and 1 large company – gathering excellence and complementary competences that cover all key aspects of the project. GENESIS will design electric (all-electric and hybrid) aircraft and elicit specific requirements, which will feed into technology foresight analyses. These will allow highlighting technological limits and potential solutions within each component of the aircraft system life cycle, which includes the life cycle of the aircraft itself as well as the life cycle of the fuels and that of the on-ground infrastructures. The analyses will enable the development of time- and technology-specific life cycle inventories, used as basis for a full-fledged prospective life cycle assessment. Combining the resulting environmental performances with those from an economic analysis and a technical analysis, comprehensive scenario comparisons between the different powertrain alternatives will be made, enabling GENESIS to identify relevant solutions and ultimately derive a detailed sustainability-based Technology Roadmap. GENESIS is anticipated to have large impact on all aeronautics stakeholders as its outputs will provide the means to steer research and boost industrial innovation and competitiveness in the EU while moving towards environmentally sustainable aviation.

IMPACT tackles all the challenges of the call JTI-CS2-2019-CfP10-LPA-01-80, “Rear fuselage and empennage shape optimization including anti-icing technologies” by: • unlocking the capability to perform fast and accurate 3D ice accretion simulation suitable for non-straight leading-edge empennages, accounting for effects of passive anti-ice coatings and devices like leading-edge undulations; • characterising, integrating, and exploiting the passive anti-ice coatings and devices for non-straight leading-edge empennage configurations, reaching TRL 5 at the end of the project; • developing and applying innovative aerostructural optimisation methods for advanced rear ends (ARE), including the effects of the passive anti-ice coatings and devices, to minimise drag and include structural and aeroelastic constraints; • validate the accuracy of the 3D icing accretion simulations and the performance of passive anti-ice coating and devices by means of large scale icing wind tunnel (IWT) experimental tests. To realize its ambition, IMPACT builds on a consortium of nine European partners from Austria, Italy and the UK, multiplying the value of EU-funding with a tenth partner from Canada, who joins the project without EU funding. The results delivered by IMPACT are expected to contribute significantly to the objectives of the CS2 IADP LPA ARE by reducing (i) its weight by 7-to-8%, (ii) its recurring costs by 5-to-6%, (iii) the LPA fuel consumption by 1.7-to-2.9%, and (iv) by favourably contributing to reducing lead time. IMPACT will ultimately support Airbus’ progress with the advanced rear end concept, enhancing the competitiveness of the European LPA industry and value chain.

COLOSSUS paves the way for future European aviation products and services which are designed in a truly holistic approach and to thus provide a major contribution to the digital transformation of aviation and air transportation in order to enable European competitiveness in a key industrial sector. The expected outcomes of COLOSSUS provide Europe’s aviation sector with the platform to develop new and breakthrough product and technology in a holistic system-of-systems approach. Main technical objectives of COLOSSUS are: (1) To create a Transformative Digital Collaborative (TDC) Framework that allows European aviation to perform research, technology development and innovation in a holistic system-of-systems approach. The TDC Framework shall support modelling, analysis, optimisation and evaluation of complex products and services under consideration of real-world conditions. (2) To expand and test the capabilities and performance of the TDC Framework with two Use Cases, both of which address needs identified in the Work Programme and thus possess a value of their own: Use Case 1: Creating a business model for sustainable 4D-intermodal mobility and evaluating the concept for performance, competitiveness, environmental impact and life cycle footprint. Use Case 2: Developing an integrated fast-response approach for preventing, detecting and fighting wildfires by combining latest developments in the fields of aircraft design and technology, automation, AI and digitalisation. (3) To perform conceptual studies for two products which could be transverse technology enablers for multi-modal mobility and affordable decarbonisation of aviation: a multi-role seaplane with hybrid propulsion and a product for eVTOL-based advanced air mobility of passengers and goods.

Green hydrogen as a fuel offers the possibility to significantly reduce or even eliminate all of aircraft’s greenhouse gas emissions. When liquid hydrogen (LH2) is used in fuel cells (FC) for power generation, this results in no CO2, no SOx and no NOx emissions. The best way to achieve this solution is to develop a hydrogen propulsive FC system as an integral part of a new LH2 aircraft concept. This means moving away from the current “plug and play” (separate motor development and aircraft architecture) philosophy towards a disruptive integrated way of development, which requires a co-creation approach of the propulsion system and the aircraft. FAME follows this approach by collaborative research and development between on one hand partners involved in development of the needed systems of the fuel cell and on the other hand Airbus as and aircraft designer, manfacturer und integrator. Thereby it is ensured that on all levels from material over component and sub-system up to propulsion system on aircraft level an optimization is realized. The focus of FAME is on developing a complete compact high-efficiency full electric propulsion system based on LH2 as energy source for short to medium range (SMR) aircraft. FAME will develop all the subsystems which are needed and integrate these in a MW FC Propulsion System ground demonstrator with the vision to scale it up to aircraft level (sufficient for SMR aircraft). FAME shows the feasibility of a multi-MW FC Propulsion system for hydrogen-powered SMR aircraft. The system will provide the basis for Clean Aviation in phase 2 to undergo a system flight test.