NASA app to cut plane flight times and fuel costs
Thursday, 24 Sep, 2015
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Carriers Virgin America and Alaska Airlines are getting a helping hand from some space age tech from NASA to help cut costs and reduce flying time.
The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has signed up the airlines to use the agency’s Traffic Aware Planner (TAP) application which allows flight crews to make changes in altitude or direction to become more efficient.
It allows pilots to make ‘traffic aware strategic aircrew requests’ (TASAR) to cut down on fuel and reduce time in the air.
TAP connects with a plane’s onboard avionics information system and based on the current position and altitude of the aircraft, then actively searches for a quicker route or change in altitude.
This is then relayed back to pilots to make any necessary changes to its current course.
The software can also scan signals of nearby air traffic in order to alert crew to any potential collision hazards due to a change of course.
TAP can also access the Internet connection of a plane to pass on the latest weather updates to the flight deck.
"The system is meant to help pilots make better route requests that air traffic controllers can more often approve. This should help pilots and controllers work more effectively together and reduce workload on both sides from un-approvable requests," said David Wing, project leader at NASA’s Langley Research Center.
Virgin America and Alaska Airlines plan to use the NASA tech for the next three years.
"Up until now there has been no way to deliver comprehensive wind and congestion data to pilots in near-real time," said Tom Kemp, Alaska Airlines’ vice president of operations in Seattle, Washington.
"TASAR is a ‘super app’ that will give our pilots better visibility to what’s happening now versus three hours earlier when the flight plan was prepared."
TravelMole Editorial Team
Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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