Eleven extra U.S. airports plan to undertake a brand new approach of touchdown planes that reduces each emissions and noise — all by having incoming planes flip off their engines and glide right down to the tarmac like a paraglider.

The Federal Aviation Administration introduced Monday that planes heading to Orlando, Fla.; Kansas Metropolis, Mo.; Omaha, Neb.; Nebraska’s Offutt Air Pressure Base; Reno, Nev.; and 6 airports in South Florida quickly would make idle descents to runways. It is a technique known as “Optimized Profile Descent,” and greater than 60 U.S. airports have already got it in place.

Historically, airplanes have made “staircase descents,” by which air site visitors controllers direct pilots to decrease altitudes in a number of intermediate steps earlier than an entire touchdown to keep away from collision within the busy airspace.


The brand new approach of touchdown — by permitting planes to stay longer in cruise altitude and keep away from burning gas throughout staircase descents — not solely would minimize carbon emissions but additionally would decrease noise ranges.

Airways would save 90,000 gallons of gas on common and scale back emissions by 27,000 tons yearly, which is equal to the quantity of gas utilized by 62 Boeing 737 flights between New York and Cleveland — or the annual carbon emissions of greater than 1,600 common People mixed.

“All people’s at idle for all the descent, burning the minimal gas, making the minimal noise and creating the minimal emission,” mentioned John-Paul Clarke, an aerospace engineering and engineering mechanics professor on the College of Texas, Austin. “So it is a win, win, win and a win.”

Such fuel-efficient touchdown had not been attainable in lots of the nation’s busiest airports due to security issues. And not using a strong mannequin that calculates descent velocity and altitude of various airplanes with various dimension and form, it was too harmful to allow them to glide right down to a tarmac.

“All people knew from the start of time that if I cruise, wait till the final minute and do idle descent, it will burn much less quantity of gas,” Clarke mentioned. “The issue is that when you could have 50 airplanes coming into an airport, doing that’s actually robust.”

What modified are these very fashions that Clarke and his colleagues constructed within the early 2000s. The method was first utilized to Los Angeles Worldwide Airport, and it’s now utilized in 64 airports across the nation, together with these in Atlanta, Denver, Houston, Miami, Seattle, the District of Columbia and Las Vegas, permitting plane to attract clean, steady arcs whereas touchdown.

The issue of arranging the busy American airspace, nonetheless, makes it tougher for extra airports to undertake Optimized Profile Descent, Clarke mentioned. As a result of any given airspace is like “Swiss cheese” with plane passing under and above them, adopting this new method to touchdown means adjusting and redesigning dozens, if not tons of, of flight routes.

The change continues to be taking place, albeit slowly.

“We’re investing throughout all the system to offer passengers with the most effective journey expertise,” mentioned appearing FAA Administrator Billy Nolen in a press release. “The period of uneven descents is coming to an finish, offering a smoother touchdown and saving gas within the course of.”