14 DAY TRIAL // Besides building rockets and habitats for astronauts getting to Mars, NASA seems to have been busy creating software and hardware to help pilots closer to home.
Apparently, NASA has developed a special software that helps reduce fuel consumption, carbon emissions, and even cut travel times in commercial airlines. What an aircraft pilot needs in order to take advantage of it is a tablet on which this software can be loaded, without changing the structure of crews or the need for any extra flight personnel. In short, this means that the technology can be implemented immediately, without delay.
Basically, the new software works by reading the plane's current position in conjunction with its flight path and then looks for an alternate route that can save both time and money.
The new app, called TAP (Traffic Aware Planner), helps the crew make traffic-aware decisions called "TASAR's." The software connects to an airplane's avionics, and from there it gathers everything it needs to provide secure and collision-free flight paths. To do this, TAP connects to the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) that scans nearby air traffic to make sure there aren't any conflicts for the newly proposed flight paths.
Ingeniously enough, for aircraft with an Internet connection, TAP can also access real-time information for live weather conditions and wind forecast updates in order to increase the overall flight efficacy. This is great news for both amateur and professional pilots alike, since weather forecasts have always been something that airmen had to study and prepare for hours before the actual flight takes place.
NASA hopes this will help revolutionize the flight system, reducing delays and environmental impacts and improving passenger comfort.