Purpose This paper aims to investigate the environmental impact of various pollutant emissions including carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxide (NOx) and hydrocarbon (HC) from aircraft exhaust gases during the landing and take-off (LTO) cycles at Eskisehir Hasan Polatkan Airport, Turkey, between 2017 and 2018. Design/methodology/approach The methodology approach used to calculate the emissions from aircrafts is based on the ICAO databank and the actual data records taken from Presidency of The Republic of Turkey Directorate of Communications (DoC). Findings The maximum amount of total fuel burnt during the two years is 80.898 and 70.168 tons in 2017 and 2018, respectively, while the average fuel burnt per year from 2017 to 2018 is approximately 369.773 tons. The highest CO, CO2, NOx and HC emissions are found to be 248.3 kg in 2017, 261.380 tons, 1.708 tons and 22.15 kg, during the 2018 year, respectively. Average CO, HC, NOx and CO2 emissions amount per year are observed to be 1.392 tons, 135 kg, 6.909 tons and 1,143 tons, respectively. Considering the average of total emission amount as an environmental factor, as expected, CO2 emissions contributed the most to the total emissions while HC emissions contributed the least to the total emissions from the airport. Practical implications The study presents the approach in determining the amounts of emissions released into the interannual atmosphere and it explicitly provides researchers and policymakers how to follow emissions from commercial aircraft activities at different airports. Originality/value The value of the study lies in the transparent computation of the amounts of pollutants by providing the data directly from the first hand-DoC.

The main objective of this study is to investigate elaborately the relationship between Exhaust Gas Temperature (EGT) and various operational parameters specific to aero-engine for the cruise phase. EGT prediction is performed based on different models, including Deep Learning (DL) and Support Vector Machine (SVM), using a set of flight data, more than 1300. In order to achieve this goal, the EGT is taken as the output parameter while the most key variables for the EGT prediction are taken as the input parameters to the models. Several statistical goodness tests, namely Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and Coefficient of Determination (R2), are conducted to make a fair comparison between the efficiency and performance of each model that is developed based on Matrix Laboratory (MATLAB) and R code. The relative importance for the Altitude (ALT) parameter of 11.89% has the highest value while the lowest relatively importance parameter is Vibration (VIB) of 5.00 %. In the light of the statistical test results, it is concluded that the DL model with RMSE of 4.3922, MAE of 3.3981 and R2 of 0.9834 shows more excellent ability in predicting EGT than the SVM model with RMSE of 5.5212, MAE of 4.0527 and R2 of 0.9712. This study may effectively be applied to different aircraft types as a useful roadmap for academic and industrial researchers in this sort of applications and it shed light on optimizing performance for specific aircraft by thermodynamic methods.

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce an approach to evaluate the establishment requirements of an flight training organization (FTO) through indicators that are not included in the regulations from the viewpoint of “acquired indicators from FTO experience” (AIs-FTOE). Design/methodology/approach Although the establishment requirements of an FTO can be determined through regulations, it was realized that the pilot training process can be achieved in a safe, sustainable and economical manner through indicators that are not included in the regulations. These indicators were obtained through experience in the operation process of the FTOs. In this study, the indicators (obtained from the regulations and experiences) affecting the efficiency of FTOs, that were or would be operational, were determined, and the effects of the indicators on the organization were examined and presented in detail. The case study was carried out in the Department of Flight Training (ETU-P) of Eskişehir Technical University which has an FTO. Findings In accordance with the results, the necessity indicators were defined, and the indicators that were not included in the regulations were called as AIs-FTOE. Identified AIs-FTOEs were classified into three main headings: natural and artificial obstacles, meteorological conditions and physical and technological resources. Detailed indicator data results were presented after examinations. Practical implications When literature on FTOs was examined, it was seen that there is a need to identify and classify indicators that affect the efficiency of FTOs. To the authors’ knowledge, this study will be the first in the literature that presented information based on an active FTO in detail. Thus, the AIs-FTOEs identified in this study will serve as a roadmap for the FTOs to be established and are to be used as parameters to evaluate efficiency for the established ones. Originality/value To the best of authors’ knowledge, this paper will be the first paper in the literature describing the indicators that can be evaluated in terms of efficiency, sustainability and economy of FTOs.

Aircraft performance parameters play a critical role in maintaining economic and environmental sustainability in aviation. Furthermore, the ability to calculate aircraft performance parameters accurately for the cruise range contributes to aviation in areas such as the preliminary design of aircraft and air traffic management. This study is focused on cruise range performance, as this is critical to both the evaluation and understanding of the economic and environmental impacts of commercial aircraft. Quick Access Recorders (QAR) data were used for more accurate analysis of the cruise range. The QAR data used in this study included 6,574 short-distance domestic flights by narrow-body turbofan commercial aircraft between 31 different city pairs. To obtain a more accurate cruise range equation, parameters affecting the cruise range performance were determined and studied. First, the drag polar model was improved to take the cambered profile, compressibility effects and cruise airspeeds of commercial aircraft into consideration using the real flight data. Second, Thrust-Specific Fuel Consumption (TSFC) models were compared and the most suitable one for the cruise phase was selected. After these steps, cruise range values were calculated using the Breguet range equation with these improved parameters. When the results of this enhanced range model were compared with the real flight data, the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) was found to be 2.5% for all the Aircraft and Engine Type Groups (AETGs) considered in the data. This figure corresponds to a 7.9% smaller error than provided by previous range models based on simple parabolic drag polar and TSFC models. According to these results, the application of a simple parabolic drag polar and TSFC is not appropriate for cruise range calculations.