Airbus invites students to develop green aviation ideas

Airbus has used the Farnborough Airshow to launch the UK arm of its biennial future of aviation competition, this year inviting students to develop their ideas for a greener aviation industry.

Winners of the Fly Your Ideas (FYI) competition will share the top prize of €30,000, the runners-up €15,000.

The contest involves three progressively challenging rounds judged by a panel of Airbus and industry experts. It concludes with a final at next summer’s Paris Air Show.

Airbus has published a report, The Future, speculating on some of the ideas that could be incorporated into the aviation industry up to 2050 and beyond.

“We drew a lot from our discussions with young people, to find out if, maybe, they thought air travel would be a thing of the past,” Charles Champion, Airbus executive vice president of engineering told Businessgreen.com. “But what they told us is that they expect to travel even more than people do today. However, they also want to travel in a more cost-efficient and environmentally friendly way.”

Students of any age, nationality, gender or discipline from engineering to marketing, business to science, philosophy to design are invited to take part.

Proposals are welcome on all aspects of the environmental life cycle, an approach Airbus uses to improve the environmental performance of an aircraft and its production process. It consists of five stages: design, supply chain, manufacturing, aircraft operations and aircraft end-of-life.

Some 2,350 students from over 80 countries took part in the first FYI competition, launched in October 2008, which was won by a multinational team from the University of Queensland, Australia. Their project focused on the use of a natural-fibre composite made from castor plants in aircraft cabins.

To enter FYI 2011 students must register as a team of three to five members on the competition website by 30 November 2010.