Formation Geometries and Route Optimization for Commercial Formation Flight

Review of Technologies to Achieve Sustainable (Green) Aviation

“…Simply using aileron may trim out the induced roll but at the expense of drag. But as Bower et al [34] have shown, it is possible to realize savings in fuel burn by using the existing aircraft by suitably tailoring the formation.…”

“…For the three aircraft inverted-V formation, the maximum fuel savings were about 7% with tip-to-tip gaps equal to 10% of the span and about 16% with tip overlaps equal to 10% of the span. Bower et al [34] conducted a case study to examine the effect of formation flight on five FedEx flights from the Pacific Northwest to Memphis, TN. The purpose of this study was to quantify the fuel burn reduction achievable in a commercial setting without changing the flight schedule.…”

“…Bower at al. [34] have recently investigated a two aircraft echelon formation and a three aircraft formation of three different aircraft and analyzed the fuel burn. Their study determined the fuel savings and difference in flight times that result from applying CFF to missions of different stage lengths and different spacing between the cities of origin.…”

Ride comfort in commercial aircraft during formation flight using conventional flight control

“…Later, in an inviscid analysis of extended formation flight, Kless et al [27] analysed a two-body echelon formation and found that simulations indicated peak induced drag savings for a trailing aircraft of up to 54% in subsonic flow and 35% in transonic flow. Bower et al [2] performed a case study in order to quantify the amount of fuel burn reductions achievable during formation flight. Using the flight data of five FedEx formation flights between two reasonably distanced countries, fuel savings of 4% for tip-to-tip gaps of about 10% of the wingspan were achievable.…”

Inviscid Analysis of Extended-Formation Flight

“…al. [3] which modeled trim with lower fidelity methods such as vortex-lattice schemes, the current work uses an iterative approach with the higher fidelity, NASA AERO package. Ailerons are deflected on the geometry, a new volume mesh is generated, and a new flow solution is computed iteratively until a specified convergence criterion is met.…”