- The British hub has partnered up with leaders in aviation, academics and the tech industry to develop two carbon-cutting ideas to Innovate UK’s Future Flight Challenge
- Challenge aims to safeguard the UK’s advantage in aerospace R&D, reduce costs, cut emissions and create an economic boost from new forms of mobility
Heathrow has come up with two projects on how to reduce emissions in aviation and make British airports more efficient in the future. These concepts are part of The Future Flight Challenge, an initiative funded by through £125 million of government grants.
The challenge has three main objectives: safeguarding the UK’s advantage in aerospace research and development, reducing aviation emissions and creating economic opportunities from new forms of air mobility.
“Heathrow has always served as a testbed for ground-breaking green technologies. These concepts go further than ever before, with the potential to transform the role that aviation plays in Britain’s economy. The Future Flight Challenge has come at a critical time for the country and our industry. We’re proud to be driving forward with these disruptive initiatives in the year that the UK hosts COP26 and our industry builds back better, as we work to recover from the devastating impacts of this pandemic.”
The two projects being researched are:
- Fly2Plan: Aims to learn how new technologies such as cloud infrastructure and blockchain could use the airport’s data more efficiently, creating a decentralised, resilient and efficient operating model to support cross-company collaboration. The concept has the potential to unlock opportunities for new entrants, cut costs and safely allow autonomous drone operators to maximise their use of UK airspace.
- Project NAPKIN: Which stands for New Aviation Propulsion Knowledge and Innovation Network, sets out to develop a blueprint that could be used to help make zero carbon aviation a reality across the UK. This idea could boost domestic connectivity and position the UK as a world leader in sustainable aviation.
