IFAR - International Forum for Aviation reseach

Kurzfassung

The future challenges of air transport motivated the leading worldwide aviation research institutions to found IFAR - the International Forum for Aviation Research which aims at the development of a Road Map outlining worldwide research. Climate change is currently the most relevant topic and was the motivation to set up IFAR. However, IFAR also addresses other topics relevant for a global air transport system (e.g. noise, security, safety, efficient operations). IFAR connects and repre-sents worldwide aviation research and provides a common voice for their members in the interna-tional dialogue. IFAR interacts with the public, politics and industry, takes up the challenges identi-fied by them and acts as independent advisor to policy makers worldwide. The idea of IFAR was born at the Berlin Summit 2008 where key leaders of 12 international aeronautical research organi-sations met to address the question of the Air Transport of the Future in the context of climate change. In this regard, the participants agreed that any research and strategy contributing to new solutions will have to reconcile the increasing need for international mobility in a globalized work-sharing economy with the challenge of simultaneously developing new solutions to balance the climate effects of the accompanying world-wide air traffic growth. At the second Berlin Summit in 2010 16 international aeronautical research organisations met and eventually set up IFAR. The main objective of IFAR is the development of a Road Map agreed upon by research institutions worldwide. Within this Road Map promising technologies are identified which contribute to an im-proved Air Transport System. IFAR as research representative focuses on the identification of new technologies up to the development of TRL level 6. The IFAR members agreed at the Berlin Sum-mit 2010 to focus in 2010/2011 on the topics related to climate change and to present potential solutions for an ecologically and economically efficient air transport system. Within the next years this Road Map is going to be extended by taking the other topics noise, safety, security and effi-cient operations into account.This paper deals with the objectives, state-of-the art and future planning of IFAR.