Why Airliners Could Soon Fly in Formation, Just Like a Flock of Birds

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An experimental Airbus concept shows airplanes flying in formation to save fuel.

Could passenger planes begin flying in formation to draft each other’s wingtip vortex effects? One Airbus-based startup concept thinks so. The concept uses a formation idea inspired by birds, who commute north to south and back in large V shapes to capitalize on the updraft generated by the birds in front.When airplanes push through the air at high speeds, they generate something called wingtip vortex, also called wake turbulence, even though it’s not true turbulence at all.

This sounds like a good idea, and when employed in the right way, it really can be. But it’s counterintuitive to a lot of ideas pilots are taught about wake turbulence. — Airbus September 9, 2020 “Extremely powerful vortices—especially those generated by a large aircraft—have been known to flip smaller planes that have encountered the horizontal tornado of air streaming behind,” CNN explains. “Avoiding wake turbulence is part of a student pilot's curriculum, as it will be in the fello'fly demonstration.”

Let’s use an analogy everyone understands: Top Gun. In the movie, Tom Cruise practices extremely close formation flying, and the climactic events are caused by something the characters refer to as jetwash. Unlike wake turbulence, jetwash, which is an umbrella term for the massively propelled air and gases that flow out of jet engines, is definitely highly turbulent. In the context of the movie, that idea is used to suggest that fighter jets can basically stall out within that turbulent blast.

 

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