Soo i came across this article
basically, airbus tested this thing out where they got a a350 -900 and -1000 to fly really close together, the -1000 used the -900 wake to prevent fuel loss. Apparently in the test it saves around 6 tons of fuel. I also forgot to mention it is a 7:40 flight across the atlantic from toulouse to montreal in this close formation. Airbus think they can implement this maybe mid decade they stated. I wanna hear ur guys thoughts
Anyways here is the link to the article
Basically recycling wasted drag. Very interesting! Once in a 757 we drifted across a contrail of an aircraft that had passed in the opposite direction. It was well after the other aircraft passed but it was a big force - unnerved lots of passengers. Lots of wasted energy. But I didn’t expect it could be used!
USAF C17’s have been doing this for a while now. Its a sensible concept, the tough part of doing it commercially is organizing and executing it regularly within safety guidelines. There’s a lot of moving parts here to make this work.
Well, this has to be part of the current efforts to get planes flying with no or little negative impact on our planet and future. Rather clever.
I read also somewhere about how much fuel could be saved by improving flight plans and getting a more flowing ATC.
Cool stuff.
