NASA’s new app helps airlines cut flight times and fuel consumption

NASA is sky-testing a new app that could help airlines cut down on flight times and fuel consumption.

Virgin America and Alaska Airlines have signed up for a three-year program to use NASA’s Traffic Aware Planner (TAP) app to make “traffic aware strategic aircrew requests (TASAR).” The software is loaded onto the electronic flight bag (EFB), which is a paperless way for flight crews to manage in-flight data. It’s a tablet designed for pilots and other flight staff.

First revealed two years ago by NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia, TASAR was initially tested in simulators before being introduced into a live environment onboard a Piaggio P.180 Avanti aircraft. Test pilot William Cotton said the system “worked well” on a test flight from Virginia to Kentucky. “We used it to make a route change request from air traffic control, which they granted,” he said. “We got a shortcut that saved four minutes off the flight time.”

For long-haul flights that could normally take 14 or 15 hours, the potential time savings could be significant, though NASA doesn’t provide any future-gazing estimations. But the reduction of even a few minutes over many flights and across many airlines would result in significant savings in carbon emissions and costs.

The TAP app plugs directly into the plane’s “avionics information hub” and detects the plane’s current route, altitude, and position, among other real-time data. TAP then searches for alternative routes and altitude positions that it believes could help conserve fuel or expedite the journey. The options are presented to the pilots, who can accept or decline.

Above: TAP & TASER

Image Credit: NASA

It’s kind of like how Google Maps’ turn-by-turn navigation suggests alternate routes during your journey based on real-time traffic data. But commercial airlines don’t have the luxury that cars have in terms of sudden about-turns or lane-changes — flight-route changes have to be approved by air traffic control. With that in mind, TAP can scan an airplane’s Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) signals to detect nearby air traffic, thus helping to avoid any potential clashes caused by a change in routes. This makes it easier for air traffic control to give the go-ahead for proposed changes.

“The system is meant to help pilots make better route requests that air traffic controllers can more often approve,” said David Wing, TASAR project lead. “This should help pilots and controllers work more effectively together and reduce workload on both sides from un-approvable requests.”

Elsewhere, TAP can access real-time weather conditions when Internet connections are available on flights, and receive updates on any restricted airspace.