777-200ER to Evaluate Emergent Technologies

Boeing has unveiled its 2022 ecoDemonstrator aircraft—a Boeing-owned 777-200ER—that, over the coming months, will test a number of emergent technologies with the aim of improving the safety and sustainability of the aerospace industry.

The ecoDemonstrator 777 will sport a special livery commemorating the program’s tenth-year and denoting both its objectives and achievements.

The program builds on a multi-year partnership during which Boeing and NASA have studied the performance and emission-improvements of sustainable aviation fuel. Fittingly, the ecoDemonstrator aircraft will be powered by a 30/70 blend of sustainable aviation fuel and conventional jet fuel throughout the test-period.

Since 2012, the Boeing ecoDemonstrator program has endeavored to advance the efficiency, sustainability, and safety of commercial aviation by testing inchoate technologies in an operational environment. To date, approximately one-third of the innovations evaluated by the program have been integrated into extant Boeing products and services.

Over the course of six months of flight and ground tests, the ecoDemonstrator will evaluate:

• A system to conserve onboard water and reduce aircraft weight and fuel use.
• Additively manufactured (3-D printed) airplane and engine parts.
• New, environmentally-friendly refrigerant and fire suppression agents.
• A heads-up enhanced vision system for pilots.

In addition to the aforementioned, the program will test a new vortex-generator developed jointly by Boeing and NASA. Vortex-generators—which improve aerodynamic efficiency at high angles of attack—are small, vertical vanes on the upper surface of aircraft wings.

Boeing Commercial Airplanes president and CEO Stan Deal states, "The ecoDemonstrator program's rigorous testing of new technologies further enhances the environmental performance of our products and services and is invaluable to continuously improving safety."

Mr. Deal’s sentiments are echoed by ecoDemonstrator Program Manager Rae Lutters, who adds, “Our ecoDemonstrator motto is: Innovate, collaborate and accelerate, and we’ve held to that motto since we started in 2012.”

FMI: https://www.boeing.com