Investigation on the benefit and feasibility of applying formation flight to civil transport aircraft

In the scope of this work, systematic investigations on formation flight benefits and feasibility from component level, overall aircraft level to fleet level have been carried out. In the aircraft component level study, the application of variable camber shows advantages in aerodynamic benefits for formation trailing aircraft comparing with aileron trimming. In the overall aircraft level, case studies on two medium range and two long range transport aircraft in formation flight indicate promising fuel burn savings. Besides, fuel planning strategies for formation trailing aircraft give insight into the potential fuel savings and safety compromise. For fleet level analysis, significant fuel savings can be obtained on the basis of two aircraft formation flight with real world operation constraints, such as scheduled departure time, flight frequencies, distance penalties, etc. The whole airline formation flight application also shows promising results in terms of total fuel burn savings.