Dynamic Terminal Airspace Configuration

Current static routes, procedures and airspace within terminal areas contribute significantly to lateral and vertical path inefficiencies. These inefficiencies are estimated to be responsible for more than 8% of the fuel burned by flights within the United States [1]. Flexible or dynamic airspace in terminal areas offers substantial potential for benefit within both near-term and longer-term concepts of operation. To further NASA’s goals and to determine how much of dynamic airspace’s potential would likely be realized in various feasible implementations, the authors have developed Terminal Flow, a simulation-based environment for the study of dynamic airspace concepts. This paper describes the dynamic airspace concepts studied, their plausible implementation in the terminal area, Terminal Flow, our methodology, and the benefit estimates we obtained.