Why Passenger Jets Could Soon Be Flying In Formation (cnn.com) 123
New submitter ragnar_ianal writes: Looking at the V-shaped formations of migrating ducks, scientists have long surmised that there are aeronautical efficiencies at play. Airbus is examining this in a practical manner to see if fuel efficiency can be enhanced. "Building on test flights in 2016 with an Airbus A380 megajet and A350-900 wide-body jetliner, [the Airbus fello'fly] hopes to demonstrate and quantify the aerodynamic efficiencies while developing in-flight operational procedures," reports CNN. "Initial flight testing with two A350s began in March 2020. The program will be expanded next year to include the involvement of Frenchbee and SAS airlines, along with air traffic control and air navigation service providers from France, the UK, and Europe." "It's very, very different from what the military would call formation flight. It's really nothing to do with close formation," explained Dr. Sandra Bour Schaeffer, CEO of Airbus UpNext, in an interview with CNN Travel.
Fix the boarding process (Score:4, Insightful)
Mythbusters has already proven that current boarding procedures are a sh*tshow. Fix those and you'll save a LOT of time.
Re:Fix the boarding process (Score:5, Insightful)
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Oh, so you also watched that Mustard-video on youtube about the Convair 990.
Re:Fix the boarding process (Score:4, Insightful)
But assuming the new boarding process didn't increase the costs to the airline by too much then improving boarding times would save money as well as saving time. (time spent on the ground costs money which is why airlines like it when they can reduce the time it takes to turn around an aircraft ready for the next flight)
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If you saw the show, you'd see it was a pretty complex process, with each passenger going in a particular order based on their seat. It would take quite a bit of organizing to accomplish, which takes time and people (aka money.)
I have a feeling they've run the numbers.
Re:Fix the boarding process (Score:5, Insightful)
You're assuming the boarding process is a delay on the ground. It's not. Passengers typically are boarded while lots of parallel activities are still underway, luggage loading, checks, etc, and in any case your "problem" could be solved far more easily by just boarding earlier. The reality is passengers are quite often boarded and seated *before* a plane is even ready to take off. You don't benefit from optimising this process.
Also "efficient" algorithms break down from a people point of view:
- Premium passengers want to feel premium by boarding first (even though front to back is the slowest way to board a plane)
- Families don't want to be split up, the most efficient boarding processes separates people sitting next to each other.
- People fly with assistance, we're not going to get on the plane faster when some kid can't reach the overhead locker because their parent isn't with them.
- Efficient algorithms assume people get in put their bag up and sit down. The reality is people get up. They sit down, they forget they left their earbuds / book / drink in their bag, etc. The "ideal" and the current process doesn't have anywhere near as big a gap as many simulations make out.
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Also "efficient" algorithms break down from a people point of view: - Premium passengers want to feel premium by boarding first (even though front to back is the slowest way to board a plane)
Back to front is fastest in theory, but not in practice using real passengers who haven't been coached. Southwest's unassigned seat policy is actually fastest [rd.com], despite usually being front to back and window/aisle then middle. I fly a lot and I anecdotally back this up. Looking for an assigned seat, people in the wrong seats, etc adds time.
Southwest's system of having all of the most experienced travelers (those with low boarding numbers due to status) board first is good because those travelers are fas
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Back to front is fastest in theory,
Nope. Not even in theory. It's the second slowest method, even if you've been coached. There's been quite a bit of research and mathematics behind it, but some of it is summarized into simple videos. This covers it quite well even assuming everyone is perfect at stowing bags which as you rightfully point out, they are not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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- Premium passengers want to feel premium by boarding first (even though front to back is the slowest way to board a plane)
This has always confused me. I've been upgraded to first class a few times back when I did a lot of business travel and I would very much want to board last if I were doing it regularly. Having several hundred people crowd past me with their bags banging the arms and seat backs is not my idea of a fun time.
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I know right!
The best experience is on an A380 in certain airports. For example the A380 at BNE via Emirates: The lounge is above the gate and therefore has a dedicated skybridge straight into the premium seats.
No need to mingle with common folk much less let them bang your arms :)
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Passengers do.
Sorry who are you and why would a for profit company care about you? No seriously there are a world of things that could be done to improve passengers experience but it costs time, effort, money or a combination thereof.
I've never understood the appeal.
Yeah I know, as someone who flies business a lot I typically come in towards the end of boarding.
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So fly slower and more efficiently. Which means flying wings with no windows and new low velocity jet turbines, some turbine on turbine action to really improve slower wind flow efficiency and generate more low velocity thrust for increased fuel efficiency and better take of characteristics. Does mean slower but still a whole lot faster than going on the ground, apart from high speed rail, about the same max speed. The faster you go, the more inefficient you become, need the right design though.
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The faster you go, the more inefficient you become, need the right design though.
I would argue that this isn't actually true. There is a point at which going slower is actually less efficient. I have no idea if that speed for an airplane is below the stall speed though so in this particular case you may be right (also for the speeds that jets travel at slowing down 10mph or so is probably beneficial).
This is the graph for trucks but I'm sure there is something similar for planes.
https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/ma... [quoracdn.net]
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So fly slower and more efficiently. Which means flying wings with no windows.
And increased cost due to vomit clean up...
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Airlines aren't interested in saving time, they're interested in saving money. That's why airliners today fly slower than they did a few decades ago.
Time is money. Airlines are very focused on reducing turnaround time [simpleflying.com], to give one example. As for speed in the air... there are several factors here.
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I have flown 8 times since March and early arrivals are happening more than they used to. There's less need to slow down if there is a strong tailwind because the gate and ground crew will be ready.
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Time is money. Airlines are very focused on reducing turnaround time [simpleflying.com], to give one exam
It takes longer for customers to go through self-checkout than have an experienced operator to do it, but provided queues don't get too long, it saves money. So not all things that save time save money. In terms of turnaround, if they are letting passengers mill around while putting luggage in the plane and doing flight checks the time the passengers are milling about doesn't matter. Boarding them faster wouldn't save any time.
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Airlines aren't interested in saving time, they're interested in saving money. That's why airliners today fly slower than they did a few decades ago.
Airliners have basically looked and operated the same since the 707 remade what an airliner is. It was the iPhone of airliners, and until somebody comes up with a radically new paradigm that works, airliners are basically just going to be a more fuel efficient 707: a tube with wings, 2 or 4 engines, and passengers lined up inside as if they're at a movie theater, going at subsonic speeds.
We fiddle around the edges looking for innovations.... three engines instead of two or four, winglets, composites instead
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Airlines aren't interested in saving time, they're interested in saving money. That's why airliners today fly slower than they did a few decades ago.
They aren't worried about saving fuel when the plane is on the ground.
This is a complex optimization problem. Saving time reduces costs. However, going faster requires more fuel. Time and fuel are competing inputs to the cost equation. Airlines fly slower now because the trade off now favors saving fuel slightly more than time. As labor and fuel costs change, so will aircraft speeds.
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"Mythbusters has already proven that current boarding procedures are a sh*tshow. Fix those and you'll save a LOT of time."
They also tested the V-formation flying.
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Fix those and you'll save a LOT of time.
It is easy to design an embarking procedure that is much faster.
The problem is getting customers to accept it. People don't like being treated like cattle.
Where people can be treated like livestock (e.g.: the military), planes are loaded much faster.
Here is the procedure:
1. Station a gunnery sergeant at the front hatch to control the loading process.
2. Load by columns in descending order, window seats first, then middle seats, then aisles.
3. When disembarking, reserse the process. Everyone in an aisle sea
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The problem is getting customers to accept it. People don't like being treated like cattle.
Do tell. Then why is flying coach so similar to packing a cattle car? Seems to me that plane has flown already...
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It is an airport issue, just like security. Besides the fix is trivial, just board from both ends.
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Mythbusters has already proven that current boarding procedures are a sh*tshow. Fix those and you'll save a LOT of time.
You'll never fix this because the average person is far too selfish/distracted/thoughtless to comply with the changes necessary and the most efficient boarding policy possible would break up groups traveling together. The airlines already know how to board and deplane as efficiently as possible. So rather than fight it they monetize it by rewarding frequent flyers and those willing to pay extra the opportunity for priority boarding.
I think that economic benefits would be offset... (Score:2)
Sure, military aircraft do it, but then military aircraft are also capable of aerial maneuvers that would be completely impractical on a passenger plane.
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The planes will be 1.5 to 2 miles apart, which I think hardly qualifies as close formation
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On the cosmic scale, two miles apart is the same as a transporter accident involving a common house fly.
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The planes will be 1.5 to 2 miles apart, which I think hardly qualifies as close formation
Then exactly what the fuck are we here talking about then? 2 miles apart hardly qualifies as a formation, military or civilian.
Given pre-COVID airline active volume, planes were likely already flying 1.5 to 2 miles apart. Likely much closer when piling up on top of each other over busy airports waiting to land.
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We're talking about flying close enough to the plane in front that the wake provides additional lift. This is apparently at a distance of 1-2 miles...
Man has been flying for over a century. We've sent men to the moon and back. Observed the flying patterns of animals for centuries now. Created stealth aircraft to hide an aircrafts "wake".
And somehow through all that, we just now figured this out? Talk about the janitor entering the discussion, and making a few dozen aeronautical engineers slap their foreheads in unison.
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That amount of fuel savings is realistic.
I've flown flights east-west in the NC piedmont that suffered from mountain waves. That is where strong, straight-line winds cross the mountains, and get disrupted in waves, just like in the ocean. As I continuously crossed from the rising to the descending air, I would go from having to pull up such that I couldn't maintain cruise speed, to having to pull power as I dived to stop the climb. Now, my plane tops out at 100kts, so it will be significanly different t
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Why would you need to fly by hand for formation flying? Autopilots are more precise than pilots, and with a combination of GPS, radar, and signal triangulation, the jets could (though they likely won't) even do close-formation on autopilot.
And how is logistics an issue? There are (or were, pre-COVID) thousands of jets flying the same or similar high altitude routes every day, the world over.
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Yup, and they get TCAS resolution advisories when there's an altitude conflict on the same course specifically to avoid collisions.
Which would notably likely scream your ears off with "traffic, traffic" "climb, climb" and "descend, descend" if you tried formation flying as described. Not saying it couldn't be adjusted, just that you'd need to change the legally mandated system currently installed on all large aircraft AND retrain pilots on whatever new traffic collision avoidance system would be.
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So you're saying they should run some tests if that "formation" flying saves enough fuel to warrant those changes?
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>So you're saying
It's funny how this is always followed by "something you obviously didn't say, but I'm going to claim you did because I'm an asshole with an agenda that I think you're opposed to" on the internet.
I didn't say anything even tangentially like what you just claimed I said. What I did say is that they'll have to rework the entire system of collision avoidance that saved countless lives ever since it was introduced decades ago, effectively ending in air collisions for large civil aviation. An
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Interesting. It sounds like you're suggesting that they should run some tests to see if that "formation" flying saves enough fuel to warrant those changes.
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They haven't even proven the concept at this point if story is to be believed. Granted, source for this is CNN edition, the central for clickbait nonsense, so it could be even less than that.
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"they get TCAS resolution advisories...Which would notably likely scream your ears off with "traffic, traffic" "climb, climb" and "descend, descend" if you tried formation flying"
So, implementation would require more effort than just saying,"Make it so"? Did anyone thing otherwise? I'm not saying its a good or bad idea, but this just sounds like a minor point.
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>this just sounds like a minor point
If you think that universally legally mandated anti-collision system resolution given by which pilot is required to obey over air traffic control for all large aircraft for decades in civil aviation is a "minor point", what would qualify as a major one?
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> Once in the upwash, autoflight systems will be required to maintain the correct position, reducing the workload on the pilots and ensuring a smooth ride for passengers by avoiding the more turbulent components of the wake. ...but, I know, that sort of insight requires reading the article, no-one does that, whaddaya some kind of reader,yadda yadda yadda...
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Finding and maintaining a flight through the upwash would never happen by hand for any period of time. There's no "lane" in the 3 dimensional path, and it is the equivalent of threading a needle blindfolded for hours on end. You can't see the micro air currents, so the pilot would have to do it by feel. Automated is the only way this could happen, and it will require ADS-B for the automation to work.
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Pilots sitting in a cockpit would not have the feedback that birds get from their senses. According to TFA, neither hand-flying nor current autopilot would be good enough to stay in the sweet spot for taking advantage of the updraft part of the wingtip vortices.
Who gets the short straw? (Score:1)
I would think everyone but the lead plane gets something out of this. I wonder how they propose the lead plane will be chosen?
Re: Who gets the short straw? (Score:2)
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Or like, you know... migrating ducks.
Re: Who gets the short straw? (Score:4, Funny)
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I would think everyone but the lead plane gets something out of this.
If they are all from the same airline, it doesn't matter.
If they are from different airlines, the normal way for businesses to compensate each other is with an exchange of money.
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Airlines still tend to stick to Victor airways. You can think of this as virtual roads in the air. The also, due to market constraints, often have planes leaving and heading in the same direction concurrently.
I would expect that a plane would just search for the wake of one that might happen to be in front of them.
Requires planes flying the same routes (Score:5, Insightful)
Coordination would be a nightmare. Would there really be enough planes going the same places at the same times, to fly in formation? I doubt it!
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Coordination would be a nightmare. Would there really be enough planes going the same places at the same times, to fly in formation? I doubt it!
For the major city to major city runs, it happens quite regularly (look at the departure board(s) for all the planes that leave to the same destination from the different airlines at about the same time (for "competitive" reasons)). It would not be useful to the smaller airports, but flights such as LA to NYC it may have benefits, and picking up a few additional departures heading towards NYC from Las Vegas, or Phoenix might be viable. In any case, it is an interesting thing to better understand how it ca
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For same destination they could just use larger planes and do codeshares rather than have several planes depart from the same airport at the same time for the same destination.
This idea is probably more intresting if you can cross the Atlantic in formation and then break up for London/Paris/Frankfurt
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For same destination they could just use larger planes and do codeshares rather than have several planes depart from the same airport at the same time for the same destination.
This idea is probably more intresting if you can cross the Atlantic in formation and then break up for London/Paris/Frankfurt
They don't have to have the same final destination, however. A plane flying to JFK, LGA, or EWR could all fly in a formation that grows as you move from west coast to east coast. Same for anyone flying to LAX, LAS, etc. Large metro areas often have many flights flying from a variety of airports to a variety of airports at other large metro areas and you could coordinate and save money. It may be that the cost of coordinating outweighs the benefits but it sounds like no one actually knows whether that is
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Based on the departure boards, it probably looks like it would work. But how often do planes leave when the departure board says it will? It's hard enough to get a single plane out of the gate at the scheduled time. Imagine having to coordinate getting multiple planes out of the gate in a coordinated fashion, while somebody in ONE of those planes has trouble getting their kids situated, or a last-minute piece of luggage has to be put on one of the planes, etc. The level of coordination is just too complex a
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So? Do it when it is feasible, which is a net gain. Don't do it when it's not, which is a net zero. Overall, it's a benefit.
Not really (Score:1)
There's no aeronautical efficiencies at all. The migrating ducks have been recruited by the white mice and they're now messing with us, too.
Okay then... (Score:5, Informative)
Let's just toss out the long-trusted rules of keeping at least a 5 mile distance for safety reasons because of fuel. No to mention the loiter time needed as all of your formation takes off.
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FTA:
They will be 1 1/2 to 2 nautical miles away from the leading aircraft, and slightly offset,
They're not exactly flying wingtip to wingtip.
Once in the upwash, autoflight systems will be required to maintain the correct position,
With the proposed separation, a malfunction or position error leaves plenty of time to break formation.
No to mention the loiter time needed as all of your formation takes off.
I think the idea is to coordinate takeoff times from different airports. For example, flights London-NY and Paris-Washington would take off in time to reach a rendezvous point, then do most of the Atlantic crossing in formation.
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Let's just toss out the long-trusted rules of keeping at least a 5 mile distance for safety reasons because of fuel. No to mention the loiter time needed as all of your formation takes off.
The 5 mile distance is precisely because no co-ordination exists. It's not a "safety reason" it's a "risk mitigation", and risks can be mitigated in multiple ways.
Also nothing about this requires time to loiter on the ground, not that this is relevant at all since not a single part of this concept in any way considers how long the flight takes. This is about saving fuel, something that planes to quite well when they are on the ground ;-)
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That's already been done.
One of the selling points of ADS-B has been that separation can be decreased.
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Not to mention all the wingtip turbulance that passenger jets are not nimble enough to cope with.
Best fuel savings. (Score:1)
What's news here? (Score:2)
I'm curious as to what's new here.
They've known about the effect with geese v-formation, in detail. for decades.
The figured out how to do something similar with fixed-wing aircraft decades ago, as well.
They've had such stuff on the drawing boards for much of that time. (Some of the proposals only have pilots in one of the two airframes, too. Think the aircraft equivalent of a double-bottom semi with electronic link rather than physical hitch between the first and second trailer.)
Is it just that they're ac
Re: What's news here? (Score:2)
Geese are typically not giant hunks of metal flying at hundereds of miles an hour. Something WILL go wrong.
Hope it does not happen over someone's neighborhood.
Safety in numbers as well (Score:5, Funny)
A flock of A380s is going to confuse predators as well
air travel is obsolete (Score:2)
Business travel subsidized so much of the costs for leisure travel. Its gone/
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Travel will bounce back on 3 November, as soon as the US Presidential Circus ends.
Ok Trump.
No, it really won't. There will not be a vaccine by November 1st, no matter how many lies the president tells.
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"It will take several decades for air travel to reach pre pandemic numbers."
According to this (https://www.bts.gov/archive/publications/special_reports_and_issue_briefs/issue_briefs/number_13/entire) ...
"air passenger travel reached its pre-9/11 peak in July 2004 and has continued to grow"
That took less than 3 years.
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"We dont travel to visit the person who picks the apples we eat, or makes the shoelaces in our shoes because that would be stupid."
Do you honestly think Nike doesn't send people to Vietnam to check out manufacturing operations?
Waiver for 91.111(c)? (Score:3)
So, is the plan to get a waiver for FAR 91.111(c)?
(c) No person may operate an aircraft, carrying passengers for hire, in formation flight.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cf... [cornell.edu]
UberAir (Score:3)
You boomers think so 20th century. Airlines will not be "carrying passengers for hire". They will convert their business model to an airborne ride sharing service. Just a few tweaks of their web pages to something like...
Hey I'm flying from NYC to LA. Anyone else going that way and want to chip in for gas? If you come I'll throw in a half a Coke and some pretzels.
When I heard "formation" (Score:2)
I thought "WTF", as this will require drastic changes in runway design, saftey would be severely compromised, etc....
But they are flying in 'formation' MILES apart. Not exactly top gun stuff.
Still, drawing up some shit on a bar napkin, and the real world are two very different things. Constant noise would be a problem, so will the decrease in saftey even if they are miles apart. Simply put, the more planes they put in the air, and closer together, the more chance of something going terribly wrong.
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But they are flying in 'formation' MILES apart. Not exactly top gun stuff.
So you're saying they won't be in the "Danger Zone" then?
Formations of one (Score:2)
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Thanks to the recession, there is no need for more than one plane per day from anywhere to anywhere.
Have you flown recently? Labor Day weekend flights were packed to the gills and there were easily half a dozen or more flights between each major hub.
Scientists have 'surmised' ... incorrectly (Score:2)
If you have ever flown you know the 'V' formation has nothing to do with aerodynamics. ... period.
It's a practical alignment to prevent collisions and increase awareness
Offset and behind another flier means you can see easily what they are doing and any sudden, unexpected changes in their flight.
Offset and behind another flier means you can hold a safe distance and common direction easily.
Offset means you can also see hazards ahead of the formation and prepare to compensate while also knowing how other flie
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If you have ever flown you know the 'V' formation has nothing to do with aerodynamics. It's a practical alignment to prevent collisions and increase awareness ... period.
Offset and behind another flier means you can see easily what they are doing and any sudden, unexpected changes in their flight.
Offset and behind another flier means you can hold a safe distance and common direction easily.
Offset means you can also see hazards ahead of the formation and prepare to compensate while also knowing how other fliers are likely to behave.
It's about better awareness of the group, the surroundings, and maintaining your role/position in the formation.
All the above is almost impossible to do in say in-line (sudden stops of any member can be catastrophic) or line-abreast formations (very hard to maintain position and group awareness).
Any aerodynamic benefits, if any, are simply a happy coincidence.
Ahh good old slashdot. Where you can depend on people to not even read the summary. This is NOT military style formation flying. They will still be some 1.5 to 2 nautical miles away from each other. That is a great distance and provides plenty of visibility, situational awareness, time to react to the changes of others, etc. At cruising speeds they will have somewhere around 15-20 seconds to react. This is 100% an attempt to increase the cost effectiveness of the A380 since it is so huge and expensive
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If you don't have a lead plane, then the "formations" might tend to get chaotic, unless the flights are closely coordinated and reactions are swift. If you have a lead plane, then following it is better than flying at its' side.
If you know anything about aerodynamics, you'd know that flying directly behind another plane puts you in its' downwash, so you have to increase your angle of attack relative to the ground, and th
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If you know anything about aerodynamics, you know that the wake vortices leave the wing tips of the plane in a V pattern, putting the second plane directly in the vortex of the lead.
The funnest way to experience this is learning to fly a glider. Drift to the side just slightly during the tow, and you get to experience what the wake vortices do.
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"Variable width font is the font of the devil.. utterly unreadable."
OK hipster.
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Compile error on line 1.
What do you mean, your comment is not code? Then why are you using the damn <code> tag, moran?
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Fixed width is the new UPPERCASE. The more-on needs a less-on.
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Hey BeauHD, don't be a moran!
Re: Yo retard BeauHD (Score:3)
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I find it hard to believe that 2 or 3 or more planes flying in formation are going to be more efficient that one plane carrying 2 or 3 times as many passengers.
When one plane (or bird) flies alone, it spends a lot of energy driving through the air. Most of that energy ends up as air currents, especially traveling high and low pressure areas and wingtip vortices.
A second plane (or bird, with somewhat different dynamics), flying in certain places and patterns relative to the lead plane/bird (or the next one
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You were doing OK (I guess) until that last sentence, but let me tell you, as someone who flew fighter planes in Vs (and other formations), it didn't provide any fuel savings. We flew close formations in order to be able to treat multiple aircraft as a single for air traffic purposes when near the field. The V shape was because it was the easiest close formation to hold for a standard group of four, but it still required constant throttle adjustments by the wingmen aircraft which used more fuel than a ste
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They're retiring that 4-burners because they are old planes that are inefficient and are approaching EOL. The are more difficult to fill completely, and can only fly to the largest of airports, reducing business flexibility.
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I know pilots that have actually done that. Got to close to the wake vortex of a landing heavy, and found themselves upside down on short final.
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I could never figure out why they chose to name the company "Airbus". It's about as exciting as naming a car race "The Watery Oatmeal 500".
Ooooh, a bus in the air! sign me up!