Aviation News – ForeFlight has teamed with Breakthrough Energy to explore the development of a tool that could help flight planners and pilots reduce contrails, the companies announced this week at EBACE 2024. While early in development, the feature would be added to ForeFlight\u2019s flight-planning suite to provide information on where conditions exist for contrails, enabling operators and dispatchers to determine whether to alter the flight path.<\/p>\n
The tool would combine weather forecast analysis, satellite imagery, and other data to model and detect contrail conditions. Luxaviation is working with the companies on the initiative.<\/p>\n
ForeFlight is looking at adding the tool into Flight Dispatch with the Profile View for planners to help decide whether an altitude change could help them avoid contrails and have the ability to evaluate the tradeoffs between fuel consumption and contrail avoidance, said Kelsey Pittman, v-p of business aviation for ForeFlight. For pilots, ForeFlight is exploring putting this information into the Weather Briefing in ForeFlight Mobile so they can have up-to-date forecasting and the ability to make last-minute adjustments, she added, calling contrail prediction a natural evolution of the company’s product suite.<\/p>\n
ForeFlight chief revenue officer Kevin Sutterfield said the data is something that the company\u2019s customers have been seeking to reduce their climate footprint and is important as business aviation continues its sustainability goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe consider corporate sustainability as an integral part of our business strategy and integrate sustainability into our decision-making processes,\u201d added Luxaviation CEO Patrick Hansen.<\/p>\n
Robert Fisch, Luxaviation’s chief aviation officer, added, \u201cWe are proud to be a strategic partner and support its ongoing development. ForeFlight provides an exceptional solution and continuously improves its features, providing situational awareness and an added layer of\u00a0safety for our operations around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
A recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report has found that contrails account for 35% of aviation\u2019s global warming impact, ForeFlight noted.<\/p>\n
Matteo Mirolo, Breakthrough Energy\u2018s head of policy and strategy for contrails, said contrails are \u201call about the reaction between the jet exhaust with specific atmospheric conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aromatics in jet fuel do not combust entirely and create soot in certain atmospheric conditions. Water vapor freezes around these particles creating a condensation trail that can persist for hours in the atmosphere forming a \u201ccloud that normally would not been there,\u201d Mirolo explained. \u201cSo very much like greenhouse gas, they act as a blanket covering the Earth\u2026So basically, we’re in front of a climate problem that is likely to be as big as CO2.\u201d<\/p>\n
Breakthrough Energy has been working on how to solve this problem, using climate science to identify where the contrails would be available.<\/p>\n
He noted that there still is a level of uncertainty in this research. \u201cThere’s a lot of scientific work to be done on how we predict contrails better and how we observe them better,\u201d Mirolo said. \u201cBut what matters most is how we find a solution to it. The main thing to resolve this problem is to change the trajectories of airplanes so they avoid these areas of the atmosphere where contrails are likely to form.\u201d<\/p>\n
He stressed, however, \u201cWe’re not talking about changing all flight trajectories.\u201d He estimated that changing just 5% of flights could avoid 80% of the contrails.<\/p>\n
Mirolo also conceded that there could be a small cost associated with using a little more fuel depending on the route changes to avoid the contrails. However, research through trials with airlines has shown that the total fuel impact could be as low as 0.3%.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that’s very low for the flights on which you intervene\u2026Potentially one of the most cost-effective climate solutions out there,\u201d he said, adding, “We need more trials.\u201d Given the flexibility with business and general aviation, he sees significant potential.<\/p>\n
The advancements in modeling accurately \u201coffer remarkable opportunities to reduce the carbon footprint of business aviation\u2026These digital tools are going to give pilots and dispatchers the abilities that they’ve never had before,\u201d Sutterfield said.<\/p>\n
He noted widespread adoption of other systems such as electric and hybrid may be years away, and customers are looking for solutions much sooner. \u201cWe believe that these digital tools will give them the best opportunity in the near term to increase efficiency and cut emissions.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the timing of when this may come to market, he said the companies are still working out some of the technology but it may be more a matter of months than years. Sutterfield noted that the tool has to show tradeoffs between flying a longer distance and possibly encountering contrail conditions. Longer distances, climbing, and descending, \u201cthey all cost\u201d not just from a money standpoint but emissions. \u201cSo we want to accurately calculate that.\u201d<\/p>\n
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