Smell My Exhaust—NASA’s DC-8 to spend time sniffing the DLR’s A320 over Germany

This week, NASA and the DLR began the ND-MAX research program designed to understand engine performance, emissions, and contrail formation from different types of aviation fuel. The collaboration sends the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center’s DC-8-72 Flying Laboratory to Germany for paired flying with the DLR’s A320 Advanced Technology Research Aircraft. (more…)

Chasing the 2017 Eclipse Across the Sky

On Monday, 21 August, millions across the United States turned skyward for a few moments to enjoy a total solar eclipse. Thousands of people in hundreds of flights also enjoyed the eclipse from the air. (more…)

AvTalk Episode 12: Out on the Airfield

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On episode 12 of AvTalk, we discuss Air Berlin’s insolvency and what that might mean for other airlines in Europe, NASA gets ready to study the eclipse, and we list some of our favorite airports. We also talk with Dan Kierna, an airport operations supervisor at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago about what it takes to keep one of the world’s busiest airports running on a daily basis. (more…)

NASA Completes ATD-1 Flight Testing

NASA, Honeywell, Boeing, and United Airlines spent the month of February testing a new technology that could enable more aircraft to safely land at an airport in a given time period. The tool, Flight Deck Interval Management (FIM), is being developed as part of NASA’s larger Air Traffic Management (ATM) Technology Demonstration – 1 (ATD-1). (more…)

Tracking Airborne Science Around the World

When scientists want to study the upper atmosphere, look deep into space, or free themselves from the effects of gravity, they don’t necessarily need to go to space to do so. NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and commercial operators have multiple scientific programs based on airborne platforms that operate anywhere from 500 feet to 60,000 feet off the ground. We’re able to track many of these flights as research is conducted in real time. (more…)