New Flying V-Plane To Be Tested This Year And Could Make Air Travel More Sustainable

Sep 04, 2019 by apost team

As climate change becomes a more prevalent, international issue, many companies around the world are looking for solutions to make their business models more sustainable. 

One particular industry that's come under fire for its carbon footprint is the aviation industry. The KLM Royal Dutch Airlines have now teamed up with Dutch researchers in order to tackle this issue. 

Researchers from the Delft University of Netherlands have teamed up with the airlines to create a completely new design of aircraft, dubbed the 'Flying-V'. The researchers claim that the Flying-V can fly with 20% less fuel than traditional aircrafts and is able to seat 314 passengers. Unlike today's airplanes, however, the cabin will be located in the actual wings.

"In recent years, KLM has developed as a pioneer in sustainability within the airline industry," Pieter Elbers, CEO and president of KLM, said in a statement obtained by CNN. "We are proud of our progressive cooperative relationship with TU Delft, which ties in well with KLM's strategy and serves as an important milestone for us on the road to scaling-up sustainable aviation."

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Roelef Vos, who is currently leading the project at TU Delft told CNN this development is an opportunity for the aviation industry to develop its existing technology for electric airplanes to become more energy-efficient. 

"Aviation is contributing about 2.5% of global CO2 emissions, and the industry is still growing, so we really need to look at more sustainable airplanes," he cautioned.

"We cannot simply electrify the whole fleet, as electrified airplanes become way too heavy and you can't fly people across the Atlantic on electric airplanes -- not now, not in 30 years," Vos said. "So we have to come up with new technologies that reduce fuel burn in a different way.

The aircraft's ability to be more energy-efficient is made possible due to the V-shape of the plane, as well it's reduced weight. Vos says they hope a scale model can be flown this month, while a mock-up will be displayed at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport in October to mark KLM's 100th anniversary.

Innovative as the design might be, however, more testing needs to be done before it can be flown commercially. 

"We've done numerical testing and preliminary wind tunnel tests, but we need to do much more testing in wind tunnels - high speed and low speed - to demonstrate that this airplane is efficient as we think," said Vos.