Environmental Analysis of System-Wide Implementation of Delayed Deceleration Approach Procedures

Abstract

The potential of system-wide implementation of delayed deceleration approaches is presented through modeling a day of operations. Conventional approach procedures may involve early deceleration in the flight trajectory, resulting in early high-lift device deployment. Alternatively, delayed deceleration approaches involve delaying high-lift device deployment, thus maintaining higher airspeeds for longer and lowering thrust requirements, which reduces fuel burn and community noise. When implementing delayed deceleration approach procedures within traffic, the primary challenge is accrued from the variability of deceleration rates, which can significantly impact approach timing and thus separation among aircraft. In this work, a framework was developed that constructs delayed deceleration approach models based on observed radar data. This framework was then implemented on an average day at Boston Logan Airport to assess the feasibility of implementing delayed deceleration approaches on commercial traffic. The results indicate that delayed deceleration approaches can be implemented for 92.2% of the evaluated traffic without separation concerns, providing an average approach fuel burn savings of 10.27% and reducing exposure of configuration noise along the flight path by an average of 8.10 N miles of ground track distance. Therefore, implementing the delayed deceleration approach on a commercial traffic may provide environmental benefits.