Aircraft project in line for EU aid

Date: 15/06/2000

By Peter Chapman

THE EU's leading helicopter manufacturers could get a massive injection of Union funds to help develop the next generation of environment-friendly commuter aircraft.

Company executives from Eurocopter and Anglo-Italian venture Augusta-Westland say they expect to get €50 million in EU aid for the first phase of work on the new aircraft, which takes off vertically like a helicopter but flies at the same speed and altitude as a plane.

But aides to Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin say the funding application is still being scrutinised by a team of independent experts. They have been tasked with short-listing proposals for the €700-million aeronautics section of the Union's fifth framework RR&D programme, with a decision due next month. "If selected, this would be a very big project. Normally projects only receive between €1.5 to €2.5 million," said one.

The official admitted, however, that the Commission itself had encouraged Eurocopter and Augusta-Westland to table a joint bid for funding after the two firms originally submitted separate proposals.

"We like to cluster research. It does not make sense to have several projects trying to achieve the same things," she said.

Philippe Galland, research director for Eurocopter - a joint venture between Aerospatiale and DASA - said the €50-million grant under consideration would pay half the expected cost of developing and testing key components of the aircraft.

This phase of the project is expected to be completed by 2004. The companies would then spend a further €1.25 billion on stages two and three, developing a working 'demo' of the plane and building prototypes, with the aim of putting the aircraft on the market in 2010 at a cost of €13-15 million each.

Galland said the 26-seater commuter plane, whose helicopter-style rotor blades would tilt to the forward position like engines in a normal aeroplane once the aircraft had reached cruising speed, would have huge advantages over traditional turbo-prop aircraft used to link regional airports or newly constructed helipads close to city centres with big international 'hub' airports.

He said the plane's vertical take-off and landing system would produce only 1% of the noise of conventional airplanes and, because it would use a helipad, slash operating costs and reduce congestion by leaving runway space at busy airports available for bigger aircraft. "The aim is to replace the existing small commuters that are using the same slot as an Airbus with tilt-rotor aircraft," he said.

EU funding for the aviation sector is politically sensitive, given recent US attacks on the Union for giving aid to the Airbus consortium for the development of its superjumbo project. But Eurocopter's Galland insisted grants for the tilt-rotor project would face little opposition from Washington, as the US had pumped €8.9 billion of state funds into developing a military plane using tilt-rotor technology made by aerospace firms Bell and Boeing.