TOULOUSE - Airbus next year will begin testing a project it calls Fello'fly, which is designed to facilitate the introduction of formation flying on transatlantic routes as soon as 2025.
The goal of the project is to help airlines reduce emissions, with a trailing aircraft taking advantage of the wake updraft created by the leading plane, much as geese do when they fly in their familiar triangle formation.
Earlier testing has led Airbus to believe that trailing aircraft could produce 5% to 10% fewer emissions by flying in a leading plane's wake.
"We see a huge chunk of potential here," said Daniel Percy, director of Fello'fly.
The project will commence next year, with Airbus conducting a series of test flights in which two aircraft are separated by just three kilometres, with the trailing aircraft lined up to "ride" the upwash created by the leading aircraft.
By the end of the year, Percy said, Airbus wants to conduct a test in which the two aircraft travel in that fashion from Western Europe to the U.S. West Coast.
The goal of the first year of testing is to prove that such flying is safe.
As Airbus envisions it, planes that fly as partners wouldn't have to depart from the same airport; they could also meet up en route. The use of rendezvous would make the formation-flying concept more operationally practicable, since an airline or airlines wouldn’t have to schedule multiple services on identical routes at the same time.
Percy said that in discussions, air traffic controllers have said that they don't expect facilitating rendezvous to be an especially complicated task, since they have long done that with military aircraft.
Among the sceptics is analyst Bob Mann of R.W. Mann and Co., who said that under current rules, three kilometres of separation is a nonstarter. And while Mann acknowledged that existing requirements could be modified over time as aircraft around the U.S. and Europe are equipped with mandated satellite transponders, he said operational considerations will present another problem.
"Birds do it, but since airlines don't manage flight activity in real time, good luck with proposed formation flying,” Mr Mann said.