Project 04 - CDA

Continuous Descent Arrival (CDA), also referred to as the Continuous Descent Approach, has proven, through both simulation and flight demonstration tests, to be highly advantageous over conventional arrival and approach procedures that require combinations of level flight segments and descents ("dive-and-drive"). These advantages provide ample motivation for research efforts to further develop CDA for implementation in low-density through high-density traffic. CDA's environmental and economic benefits were demonstrated by PARTNER researchers in flight tests at Louisville International Airport in 2002 and 2004, and Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in 2007. Successful implementation was also achieved at Los Angeles International Airport in 2007 and Atlanta in 2009. From the environmental perspective, there are significant reductions in noise along portions of the flight path (due to reductions in thrust and a higher average altitude) and emissions (due to reductions in thrust). From the economic viewpoint, there are significant fuel and flight time savings (due to reductions in thrust and a higher average speed) as well as the potential to meet or exceed current runway throughput without the need to vector aircraft. Future work will include a module integrated with the existing FAA TARGETS analysis program to facilitate CDA future development; in addition, to enable CDA implementation in a more dense traffic situation, a metering tool is being developed for the aircraft merging and spacing required.

• Record URL:
  http://partner.mit.edu/projects/continuous-descent-arrival
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Program Information: Energy and Environment, Operational Procedures

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $120000.00
• Sponsor Organizations:

  Federal Aviation Administration

  800 Independence Avenue, SW
  Washington, DC  United States  20591
• Project Managers:

  Hileman, James

  Maurice, Lourdes

• Performing Organizations:

  Georgia Tech University, Atlanta

  Atlanta, GA  United States 
• Principal Investigators:

  Waltz, Ian

• Start Date: 20120510
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• Source Data: RiP Project 30590

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air traffic control; Aircraft noise; Aircraft operations; Civil aviation; Environmental impacts; Pollutants
• Identifier Terms: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; Los Angeles International Airport; Louisville International Airport
• Uncontrolled Terms: Continuous Descent Approach
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Operations and Traffic Management;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01572634
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Department of Transportation
• Files: RIP
• Created Date: Aug 11 2015 1:00AM