NASA app lets pilots find more economical and faster route

NASA will test an application that will allow pilots to fly better and faster routes by reading the position and flight route of the aircraft on a tablet. No major adjustments are required in the aircraft to use the system called TAP.

The Traffic Aware Planner connects directly to the aircraft’s information system, said project leader David Wing on the NASA site. The app can directly request altitude, speed and flight route information via the information system. The app development is part of a NASA project called traffic aware strategic aircrew requests, or tasar for short. TAP can also connect to the ads-b system, the system used for direct communication with other aircraft in the vicinity.

Aircraft that have an internet connection in the cockpit can also request real-time weather information or information about the airspace via TAP. The latter may sound strange, but until now it has not been possible to provide comprehensive wind and traffic data to pilots in real time, Alaska Airlines Vice President Tom Kemp indicates. He even thinks it’s a ‘super app’, because the app gives pilots more insight into what is happening at the moment instead of when the flight plan was made hours earlier.

The researchers who make the software say that even four minutes less flight time on each leg of a flight can save enormous amounts of fuel. The software has already been tested aboard a Piaggio P180 Avanti aircraft and will be further tested in collaboration with Virgin America and Alaska Airlines over the next three years.

Piaggio P180 Avanti test plane for tasar tests