{"id":1562,"date":"2011-06-09T20:30:02","date_gmt":"2011-06-09T20:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/?p=1562"},"modified":"2011-06-09T20:30:02","modified_gmt":"2011-06-09T20:30:02","slug":"fromation-flying-saves-half-the-fuel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/?p=1562","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Formation flying saves half the fuel&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1563\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><strong> <\/strong><strong><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-1563\" href=\"http:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/?attachment_id=1563\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1563\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-1563\" title=\"formationflying\" src=\"http:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/formationflying-300x187.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"187\" \/><\/a><\/strong><p id=\"caption-attachment-1563\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Illustration: Piet van Rosmalen<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>Nine TU Delft students have won a Dutch aviation award for their idea of  having airliners fly like geese: in formation. They calculated a 50  percent fuel reduction.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The inspiration came from geese, Hugo Dijkers and Joren de Wit,  members of the winning student team, admit. These birds fly great  distances, always in the typical V-shaped formation, which reduces their  energy needs by as much as 60 to 70 percent. So why not learn from  nature and have large airplanes fly in formation as well?<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Dr  Wouter Beelaerts van Blokland (Aerospace Engineering), who was the  students&#8217; principal supervisor, proposed the project to the students  after having checked its feasibility. He discovered that for formation  flying to work, the mutual position of the aircraft must be controllable  within 10 centimeters. If so, that degree of precision navigation  should indeed be achievable, he asserts.<\/p>\n<p>The force behind  formation flying comes from the quasi-static air currents originating at  the wingtips during flight. These so-called vortices are normally  feared, as they can drag other aircraft down, but a vortex also has a  region that pushes other aircraft up and reduces their drag. That&#8217;s what  geese benefit from.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s a paradigm shift,\u201d says Dr Beelaerts  van Blokland. \u201cWhen you don&#8217;t know exactly where the vortex is, you  prefer to stay away from it. But once you can locate it precisely, you  can benefit from it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The team proposes to pinpoint the vortex by  using Lidar technology (a remote sensing technology that uses laser  pulses to measure distances). Only one wing will be lifted by the vortex  of the plane in front. This means that the other wing and the rudder  must be especially equipped to deal with the permanent imbalance. The  students propose to achieve this using morphing wing technology.<\/p>\n<p>The  organisers of the Nationale Luchtvaartprijs (National Aviation Award)  called for innovative, energy-saving aviation proposals. The students  reckon that the open rotor jet will save 20 percent on fuel, and  formation flying, with the benefit of lighter aircraft carrying less  fuel, will save another 30 percent.<\/p>\n<p>In their vision, future  airliners flying from, say, Paris, Amsterdam and Munich, will gather  above Ireland, before crossing the Atlantic in formation, taking turns  taking the lead, and then splitting up to their various destinations  above the US east coast.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"javascript:void(null);\">www.formationflying.nl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nine TU Delft students have won a Dutch aviation award for their idea of having airliners fly like geese: in formation. They calculated a 50 percent fuel reduction. The inspiration came from geese, Hugo Dijkers and Joren de Wit, members of the winning student team, admit. These birds fly great distances, always in the typical [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[37,179,187],"class_list":["post-1562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-delta","tag-air-travel","tag-formation","tag-fuel-efficiency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}