“The FAA continues its goal to improve National Airspace
System energy efficiency by at least two percent per
year, and to develop and deploy alternative jet fuels
for commercial aviation, with a target of one billion
gallons of alternate jet fuel in use by 2018,” said FAA
Administrator Michael Huerta. “This Center of Excellence
is a valuable tool to provide the critical data we need
to reach these goals.”
The COE industry and other organizational partners
include: Aerodyne Research, Airbus/EADS, Alaska
Airlines, Boeing, Cathay Pacific Airways, Clean Energy
Trust, CSSI, Delta Air Lines, General Electric Aircraft
Engines, Gevo, Gulfstream, Harris Miller Miller &
Hanson, Honeywell UOP, InnovaTek, KiOr, LanzaTech,
Metron Aviation, NREL – National Bioenergy Center, PNNL,
Rolls Royce, SAFRAN, U.S. DoD – AFRL (Wright Patterson
Air Force Base), UTRC (Pratt and Whitney), Weyerhaeuser,
Wyle Laboratories and ZeaChem.
Congress authorized Air Transportation Centers of
Excellence under the Federal Aviation Administration
Research, Engineering and Development Authorization Act
of 1990. This legislation enables the FAA to work with
universities and industry partners to conduct research
in airspace and airport planning and design, environment
and aviation safety, as well as to engage in other
activities to assure a safe and efficient air
transportation system.
The FAA has established Centers of Excellence with more
than 75 universities conducting research and education
in nine other topic areas focusing on: commercial space
transportation, airliner cabin environment and
intermodal research, aircraft noise and aviation
emissions mitigation, advanced materials, general
aviation, airworthiness assurance, operations research,
airport pavement and airport technology, and
computational modeling of aircraft structures.
The results of the research conducted through these
Centers has resulted in enhancements to policy,
guidance and overall safety improvements in many
areas, including: remote airport lighting, updated
training methodologies for aviation safety
inspectors, advancements in Automatic Dependent
Surveillance/Broadcast (ADS-B), helipad lighting
enhancements for emergency medical services, a
national general aviation flight information
database, a national wildlife database, reduction of
approach fuel burn by 10-20 percent, and many other
innovations.
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