Boeing and Partners Demonstrating New Quiet-Aircraft Concepts

Boeing is leading a three-week program at its Glasgow, Montana, test facility to evaluate several advanced noise-reduction concepts, including chevrons on engine exhaust ducts, and a new acoustic treatment for the engine inlet.  Landing gear noise reduction concepts will be tested also to evaluate their ability to reduce noise generation during approaches.

The program is an equal cost-sharing project between Boeing, General Electric, Goodrich Corporation's Aerostructures division, and NASA.  All Nippon Airways is providing one of its soon-to-be-delivered GE90-115-powered B-777-300ERs, temporarily dubbed the Quiet Technology Demonstrator "2" or QTD2.

QTD2 follows Boeing's earlier Quiet Technology Demonstrator program that verified significant noise reduction solutions, some of which are now standard on the 777.

Each company is validating key technologies for incorporation into its own current and future products, while NASA is acquiring data to test some of its advances in propulsion aeroacoustics and computational fluid dynamics, as part of its Quiet Aircraft Technology project.

GE will test several new technologies that it wants to incorporate into its advanced programs, such as its GEnx engine being developed for the B-787 and 747 Advanced, as well as the LEAP56 program for its CFM56.