Contributor Chet Fuller is president of the systems civil business for GE Aviation.


Greener arrivals: Chet Fuller president of the systems civil business of GE Aviation testified to Congress on more efficient flight paths.

Congress recently held hearings to tackle the complex issue of how to modernize the outdated U.S. air traffic control system. While the technical details may not be apparent to those not in the aviation business, anyone who’s ever looked skyward near a major airport can see part of the problem right in front of them — plane after plane circling above as they prep for landing. Not only are those aircraft relying on 1960s-era air traffic control technology — they’re unnecessarily burning too much fuel because of the cumbersome, stairstep method used to descend and the flight tracks that take away from their destination for spacing prior to landing. That’s why I testified at the hearing — to urge Congress to accelerate the creation of efficient approaches that use today’s satellite based navigation systems to bring aircraft out of altitude.

Along with representatives from the FAA, DOT, MITRE, Jeppesen, Southwest Airlines, Alaska Airlines and the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (the union representing the FAA’s procedure developers), I advocated that we accelerate the use of RNP, which, in a nutshell, would move air traffic control from a ground-based, voice controlled management system to one that is space-based and digitally controlled.

In my testimony, I underscored that RNP means greater accuracy and precision and enables efficiency. It also saves time, fuel, reduces carbon emissions, and it reduces community noise on both approach and departure. Improving navigational accuracy translates into increased airspace capacity and efficiency.


Smooth moves: Currently aircraft landings are done in stages. The aircraft – show by the blue line — descends in a stair-step approach by descending to a certain altitude, holding, and then repeating the steps until it nears the airport final approach. With an optimized descent — shown with the green line — via our Flight Management System (FMS), the aircraft would perform a continuous descent into the airport — which is a more direct path to landing that saves fuel.

Not only is the technology ready; but once it’s implemented, there are even greater benefits to be had. A demonstration GE participated in with Scandinavian Airlines in Sweden has taken RNP one-step further by adding time to the equation. The GE demonstrations eliminated the stepped descent for an aircraft’s arrival — in which the plane is operating at less than optimal efficiency and usually with extra miles added to their flight track.

We need to take note that all approaches are not created equal. If you take an existing approach and merely re-create it so that it might be flown using RNP equipment and procedures, you get exactly the same results — almost no improvement. The most efficient descent is one single continuous descent, in which the engines are at low power the entire time. The aircraft flying this approach will not suffer through multiple step-downs, throttle changes, and extra miles.

Using RNP, aircrafts are able to fly the most efficient route in the shortest distance, saving time, money and fuel and lowering emissions. These shorter routes have the potential to cut global CO2 emissions by about 13 million metric tons per year — that’s more than 1.2 billion gallons of fuel.

There are very few initiatives that will simultaneously improve fuel efficiency, aircraft emissions, community noise, system capacity, and airline productivity all together. The benefits have been proven and thousands of aircraft are already equipped.

* Read “Jump into GE’s integrated cockpit at Paris Air Show”
* Read “GE’s FMS optimizes approaches” in Aviation International News
* Learn more about GE’s integrated cockpit
* Read our coverage of the Paris Air Show