Comparison of Business Jet Performance Using Different Strategies for Flight at Constant Altitude

Using an autothrottle to compare techniques for saving fuel on a regional jet aircraft

“…Actual engine data provided in [26] indicates that this is really not the case. This data shows that at full throttle TSFC does not vary much with speed, but at lower throttle settings TSFC varies considerably with speed.…”

“…This path would increase the range of the aircraft by seven percent, however, it is not practical to fly using this method in controlled airspace because of the changing airspeed [27]. The ideal solution for controlled airspace is a flight path with constant altitude and an optimum Mach number [26], [18], [10].…”

“…In addition to the aircraft manufactures' published speed and maximum range for a particular model, much research has been done to try to improve the advertised performance of cruise flight. For instance, the research in [26] and [12], focused on the flight conditions that could increase the cruise range performance.…”

“…The throttle setting is defined as δ, where δ min ≤ δ ≤ 1 and T M is the maximum thrust. The induced drag factor, K, is defined as [26]:…”

“…In addition to the plant model, a measure of the performance of the aircraft should also be derived, in this case the desired output is the range traveled by the aircraft. In [26], range in nautical miles is a defined function of true airspeed in knots, U , lift-to-drag ratio, L/D, thrust specific fuel consumption (TSFC) in pound per hour per pound, c T , and aircraft weight, W , as follows:…”