A major branch of the Clean Sky European Project, the "Systems for Green Operations" Integrated Technology Demonstration (ITD) formally launched work at its kick-off meeting on 30 September 2008 in the Allgäu region of South-western Germany. This ITD is one of the six technology domains of the Project. It will design, build, validate and fly innovative on- board equipment and systems. This will allow the aircraft to achieve high environmental performance through two different approaches: the optimisation of the management of aircraft energy on one hand, and the management of aircraft mission and trajectory on the other. With a budget of over €300 million, the ITD is led jointly by Liebherr-Aerospace and Thales' aerospace activities.

The Governing Board of Europe's "Clean Sky" Joint Technology Initiative (JTI) held its first board meeting on May 28, 2008 in Berlin during the ILA Airshow. The meeting paved the way for the JTI's participant members to begin work on the next generation of greener aircraft.

"Clean Sky" is one of the largest European research initiatives ever, with a budget estimated at €1.6 billion over seven years, of which half is contributed by the European Commission and half by the European Aeronautics industry, research centres and universities. This public-private partnership will speed up technological breakthroughs to develop aircraft with high environmental performance. For more information, please visit www.cleansky.eu