16th IFAR Summit

The 16th annual summit of the International Forum for Aviation Research (IFAR) successfully concluded at TU Wien. Almost 70 participants representing 20 different member countries attended the summit.

Industry visits in Wiener Neustadt and Vienna

The main topic of the 16^th IFAR summit was Quieter Aviation. In addition to the annual formal agenda topics of the general meeting, keynote presentations were delivered by vice rector Prof. Peter Ertl, representing TU Wien, VP Engineering at FACC AG Dr. Peter Glaser, representing the Austrian Aviation Industry, and Dr. Polina Wilhelm, representing the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) and the Federal Ministry for Innovation, Mobility and Infrastructure (BMIMI).

Panel discussion and IFAR Café workshop

This was followed by an interesting panel discussion in which experts from various aviation disciplines discussed the topic of noise emission, moderated by Peter Malanik (Aviation Industry Austria). Following on the perspectives presented, an IFAR Café workshop was subsequently conducted, in which the summit participants and external experts engaged in discussions and developed a statement, in three thematically separate rooms. The subjects covered propulsion and airframe noise of large aircraft (Dr. Frank Simon, ONERA), the regulatory framework as well as operations (Christian Schleifer MBA, former representative of Austria on the ICAO Council) and Quieter Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) as well as Supersonic Flight (Dr. Bianca Schuchardt, DLR).

Additional to the interesting discussions, industry visits were made to Austrian aviation companies in Wiener Neustadt and Vienna. Diamond Aircraft, a leading global manufacturer of light aircraft, offered the international participants insights into their production line. The tour started at the lay-up process of individual aircraft components and ended at the integration of the motor and systems into the finished fuselage. Additionally, the ground testing facilities were shown, including the research and development hangar, where the eDA40, a fully electric aircraft demonstrator was displayed. The industry visits were concluded by a tour of the facilities at the RTA Climatic Wind Tunnel, a state-of-the-art facility that simulates extreme weather conditions to test the performance of rail, road, and aerospace vehicles.