Airbus's BLADE - Breakthrough Laminar Aircraft Demonstrator in Europe

Another leap forward towards cleaner and more fuel-efficient aviation this Airbus A340 took off from Toulouse, on a beautiful fall day on its first test flight with totally newly designed wings that could eventually revolutionise air travel the project called blade. 

Video Credits: Airbus

It is a European Union backed program to find ways of making flying even cleaner engineers from Airbus and its partners have been huddled together since 2008 developing the new wings called laminar wings similar to what you get on gliders to reduce wind drag.

The target of blade project is to bring into the air new type of wing called the laminar way which aims at reducing aircraft drag. The wing drag is the fact that when you fly the air, it is trying to slow you down same as when you drive your car and this is why we need engines on our aircraft to keep them going on. The less drag on, the less power we need and the less fuel consumption. The animation provided gives you an idea of what happens when the air flows over the wing, initially it goes in a straight line but then disperses and waves a little like a candles fume the flow is turbulent which leads to drag.

The idea is to make the wind flow smoother and more efficient. The long-term aim of the blade project is to reduce fuel burn by as much as 5%, for the aviation industry that would be great news especially when you consider that fuel can be up to 40% of an airline's operating costs.

Video Credits: Airbus

In generally speaking the fuel burn is really important for the Airlines, this is a major part of their overall cost structure for operating an aircraft. So any solution that helps reducing the discussed is very important.

Ambitions indeed, the objective, the first objective for this type of technology is an introduction on short-range type of aircraft but over the long term this is also Airbus's intention and ambition to deploy laminar flow on long-range type aircraft, but this will require some extrapolation of these results but also some further technology development because there are technical specificity.

"You saw these laminar wings here first but within 15 years from now they could be commonplace in your journey."

Video Credits: wcolby