Aircraft having reduced environmental impact

1. Aircraft of reduced environmental impact, having a longitudinal axis and comprising:

at least one engine which comprises at least one propeller positioned behind said engine and able to exert thrust on said aircraft and which is mounted at the rear of said aircraft, on the back thereof, the axis of said engine being at least substantially parallel to said longitudinal axis of the aircraft, said engine and said propeller being such that, should they shatter, their debris would follow paths contained in a shatter region aligned with said axis of the engine and delimited, transversely to the latter axis, by a front boundary and by a rear boundary; and

a cell the rear part of which comprises a horizontal tail plane and two vertical tail planes positioned one at each end of said horizontal tail plane, said rear part of the cell comprising a tail box supporting said horizontal tail plane and said propeller being positioned vertically in line with said rear part of the cell so that the latter forms an anti-noise barrier at least in respect of the downwardly directed engine noise,

wherein:

said engine is mounted on said rear part of the cell in such a way that the rear boundary of the shatter region is located forward of the central part of said tail box and the forward boundary is located forward of the leading edge of said horizontal tail plane; and

said horizontal tail plane is swept forward at an angle.

2. Aircraft according to claim 1 , wherein a fixing system for attaching the engine to said rear part of the cell is also positioned forward of the central part of said tail box.

3. Aircraft according to claim 2 , wherein the angle of inclination of said forward-swept horizontal tail plane is adjustable.

4. Aircraft according to claim 1 , wherein said rear part of the cell and the forward sweep of the horizontal tail plane are designed to reduce the noise emitted by said engine.

5. Aircraft according to claim 4 , wherein the acoustic intensity shrouded by said rear part of the cell on each side of the plane of the propeller is equal to at least approximately −5 dB with respect to said maximum intensity.

6. Aircraft according to claim 4 , in which said proportion of the noise forms a noise zone aligned with said axis of said engine and delimited, transversely to this axis, by a front boundary and a rear boundary,

wherein the forward-swept leading edge of said horizontal tail plane at least approximately follows the line of said front boundary of said noise zone.

7. Aircraft according to claim 6 , wherein the angle at which said leading edge of the horizontal tail plane is swept forward is around fifteen degrees.

8. Aircraft according to claim 1 , wherein the angle at which said horizontal tail plane is swept forward is around twenty degrees.

9. Aircraft according to claim 1 , wherein the aircraft comprises a single propeller engine mounted at the rear and at least two turboshaft engines borne symmetrically by the wings of said aircraft.

10. Aircraft according to claim 1 , wherein the aircraft comprises at least two such propeller engines mounted at the rear of the aircraft, on the back thereof and positioned one beside the other with their axes parallel.