News
Final Forum of FLYSAFE – a European Integrated Project coordinated by Thales
April 14, 2009, Neuilly-sur-Seine – The FLYSAFE consortium, made up of 36 European partners, held its final forum last week on March 25 and 26 with the different partners presenting their results.
April 14, 2009 By Carey Fredericks
Neuilly-sur-Seine, 14 April 2009 – The FLYSAFE consortium, made up of 36 European
partners, held its final forum last week on March 25 and 26 with the different partners
presenting their results. Systems and functions developed throughout the lifetime of the
project were also demonstrated in NLR’s (Holland’s National Aerospace Laboratory)
comprehensive air traffic control and flight simulators.
The FLYSAFE project (Airborne Integrated Systems for Safety Improvement, Flight Hazard
Protection and all Weather Operations) aims at making flying even safer. It is focused on
reducing accidents caused by collisions with other aircraft or terrain, and accidents caused
by bad weather.
More specifically, the project is dedicated to the analysis and definition of new on-board
systems, contributing to flight safety for all aircrafts. Another significant achievement is the new ground-based tools for producing customized meteorological nowcasts and forecasts for uplink to individual planes.
Jean-Georges Malcor, Thales’s Senior Vice President in charge of aerospace activities, said
“Thales is very proud of having coordinated such a successful project with such proactive
and competent partners. We have brought together a talented team representing all
stakeholders within the air transport domain: aircraft manufacturers, equipment providers, ANSPs, universities, research centres and specialized companies.”
The FLYSAFE project is a major European Commission Research project (6th FP), bringing
together 36 partners from 14 countries for a 2005-2009 joint effort. The total cost of this
project is estimated at 53 million euros, with half being funded by Industry.
Over the last three months, evaluation tests with experienced airline pilots have been carried out in NLR’s simulators. Pilots were able to test, in a wide range of operational
circumstances, the acceptability and benefits of the new systems and functions. Their
feedback will pave the way to further development possibilities by the FLYSAFE partners.
The results of FLYSAFE will be used for other major European projects such as CleanSky,
the Joint Technology Initiative aimed at developing greener aircraft of the future, and
SESAR, the Single European Sky initiative for modernisation of Air Traffic Management.
Thales and the FLYSAFE partners are committed to leveraging the experience gained by the project to deliver the best solutions for future aircraft.
