Tom G. Reynolds

Commercial Airline Speed Optimization Strategies for Reduced Cruise Fuel Consumption

The economic and environmental ramifications of aviation fuel burn are becoming increasingly more important for airlines, the traveling public, and society as a whole. Many methods are available for reducing fuel impacts. Airline operational adjustments are particularly appealing due to the potential for rapid implementation, significant savings, and relatively low capital expenditure requirements. One such mitigation is cruise speed and altitude optimization given a fixed lateral routing. This paper aims to establish an efficiency benefits pool for achievable systemwide cruise altitude optimization for domestic US operations. A flight-by-flight analysis is conducted using over 200,000 historical operations performed in 2012, accounting for actual winds and temperatures experienced by those flights. Various optimal altitude profiles are generated and compared to the as-flown baseline. A discussion of barriers to implementation accompanies these results. From this analysis, potential systemwide fuel burn reductions of 1.87% (cruise climb), 1.91% (1,000 ft. step climb), 1.75% (2,000 ft. step climb), and 1.96% (flexible climb/descent profiles) are shown to be possible through optimal altitude selection, holding lateral track and speed profiles constant relative to historical records. The comparative benefits of altitude and speed optimization are discussed.

Investigating conformance monitoring issues in air traffic control using fault detection techniques

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, February 2004.

Analysis of a Surface Congestion Management Technique at New York JFK Airport

Airport surface congestion can be a cause of significant increases in taxi times, fuel burn and emissions. Various surface congestion management techniques are being developed to help mitigate these issues at different airports, typically by holding aircraft at the gate or some other designated area during times of high congestion in order to reduce the number of aircraft on the active movement area. This paper describes the development and field testing of one such technique at New York John F. Kennedy airport. Impacts are quantified based on extensive analysis of operational data. Total annualized taxi-out time reductions of 14,800 hours were estimated at the airport, with annual fuel savings of 5.0 million US gallons (

Conformance monitoring approaches in current and future air traffic control environments

10- 15 million at

Evaluation of potential near-term operational changes to mitigate environmental impacts of aviation

2-3/US gallon) and 48,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions reduction.

History, Development and Analysis of Noise Abatement Arrival Procedures for UK Airports

Conformance monitoring is of fundamental importance to ATC operations and future surveillance environments may enable more sophisticated procedures to be developed for this task. A Conformance Monitoring Analysis Framework has been presented which enables model-based fault detection and isolation techniques to be employed to investigate many important issues. The essential concepts of Conformance Residual generation; decision-making and intent inferencing have been identified and a lateral trajectory case study using a very simple Conformance Monitoring Model has been used to illustrate the promise of this approach for investigating different state environments. Preliminary results indicate potential improved time-to-detection performance associated with using relevant higher order states in addition to position, but this is at the expense of greater noise in the Conformance Residual.

Mitigation of Aviation Emissions of Carbon Dioxide: Analysis for Europe

Changing aircraft operational procedures is one way of mitigating the environmental impacts of aviation in relatively short timeframes with existing aircraft types. However, to date these mitigations have not been evaluated or compared in a systematic manner that considers both their environmental impact reduction potential and their ability to be successfully implemented. This article presents a comprehensive identification and systematic evaluation of potential near-term operational changes to determine their relative environmental mitigation benefits. The research also evaluated the potential for successful implementation by identifying possible barriers to implementation for each mitigation. The analysis identifies the most promising mitigations offering a combination of environmental impact reduction and ease of implementation.

A statistical learning approach to the modeling of aircraft taxi time

*† ‡ § ¶ There is increasing pressure to reduce the environmental impacts of air transport operations. To that end, a discussion of noise abatement procedures for approach operations in the busy UK airspace is presented in this paper. Firstly, a brief history of noise abatement procedures is presented together with a description of the most promising operational technique: Continuous Descent Approach procedures. The impacts of airspace constraints and the trade-offs between environmental benefits and operational flexibility in the noise abatement procedure design process are discussed in the context of the UK environment and compared to less congested airspace in other parts of the world. The development of noise abatement procedures can be supported through the use of analysis tools that enable impacts on key metrics to be assessed, including environmental variables (such as noise, fuel burn and emissions) and operational factors (such as “flyability” by different aircraft types and impacts on runway capacity). A suite of tools to examine these key impacts are described. A case study of the development of noise abatement approach procedures at a candidate airport is used to illustrate the concepts and tools discussed in a specific circumstance. Finally, the impact of advanced technologies and designs are discussed to highlight the most promising areas of research that may enable further improvement in the future.

A Decision Support Tool for the Pushback Rate Control of Airport Departures

This paper investigates the interaction between economic, technological, and operational measures intended to reduce air transport-related emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). In particular, the introduction of aviation to the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in 2012 may prompt increased uptake of presently available options for emission reduction (e.g., retrofitting winglets, expanding maintenance programs) by airlines operating in Europe. Carbon prices may also determine the use of options currently under development [e.g., open-rotor engines, second-generation biofuels, and improved air traffic management (ATM)]. The results of a several studies analyzing airline costs and emission reductions that are possible from different mitigation options are applied to a systems model of European aviation. With a set of nine scenarios (three internally consistent projections for future population, gross domestic product, oil and carbon prices, each run with three policy cases), technology uptake and the resulting effect on fuel life cycle CO2 emissions with and without an ETS are analyzed. Some options are rapidly taken up under all scenarios (e.g., improved ATM), others are taken up more slowly by specific aircraft classes depending on the scenario (e.g., biofuels), and others have negligible impact in the cases studied. High uptake of one mitigation option may also reduce the uptake of other options. European aviation fuel life cycle emissions could be reduced below 2005 levels before 2050 if cellulosic biomass fuels are made available by 2020. However, the land use requirements in this scenario may limit its practicality at currently projected cellulosic biomass yields.

Modelling Environmental and Economic Impacts of Aviation: Introducing the Aviation Integrated Modelling Project

Modeling aircraft taxi operations is an important element in understanding current airport performance and where opportunities may lie for improvements. A statistical learning approach to modeling aircraft taxi time is presented in this paper. This approach allows efficient identification of relatively simple and easily interpretable models of aircraft taxi time, which are shown to yield remarkably accurate predictions when tested on actual data.