The effects of flap extension time on the fuel burn of commercial aircraft
Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology
ISSN: 0002-2667
Article publication date: 17 May 2022
Issue publication date: 5 December 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the effects of descent time spent with flaps extended on fuel burn (FB) and specific range for five different flight path angles (FPAs) ranging between 2.0° and 4.0° for a commercial aircraft.
Design/methodology/approach
A large data set of actual flight data (n = 475) of the same type of a frequently used commercial aircraft were investigated by using statistical methods.
Findings
The result of the comparison of the highest and the lowest FBs of flight profiles for each FPAs present that the fuel saving was achieved by keeping at as a high airspeed as possible and deploying flaps as late as possible, which is in line with the objective of delayed deceleration approaches. From analyzing the flight profiles, it was proven that delaying deceleration and also descending without flaps or with flap over a shorter time resulted in less FB of 101.1, 70.9 and 94.9 kg for FPA 2.5°, FPA 3.0° and FPA 3.5°, respectively.
Originality/value
This study differs from prior studies because it focused on the effects of the different vertical profiles on FB. Also, the use of real flight data recorder data in the analysis presents the originality of this study.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by Eskişehir Technical University Scientific Research Projects Commissions (project numbers: 1703F073 and 20ADP167) of Turkey. The author gratefully acknowledges Pegasus Airlines, which provided access to actual flight data.
Declaration of conflicting interests: The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and publication of this article.
Funding: The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Citation
Sahin, O. (2022), "The effects of flap extension time on the fuel burn of commercial aircraft", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 94 No. 10, pp. 1825-1833. https://doi.org/10.1108/AEAT-05-2021-0148
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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