CO2 Emissions Could Be Reduced By 80 Million Pounds Annually, Noise Footprint By More Than 50%

Delta Air Lines has placed an order for more than $60 million with Innovative Solutions & Support, Inc. for a complete Systems Integration, Dual GPS Navigation and Cockpit Avionics upgrade of Delta’s MD88 and MD90 aircraft. IS&S will supply all the equipment and installation kits. Specially trained IS&S installation teams will remove existing equipment and install all the LRUs, on site, and prepare the aircraft for return to service. It is anticipated that the modifications will take fewer than six days

This Delta Air Lines order for a fleet-wide retrofit of MD-88/-90 aircraft will provide those aircraft with full RNP, RTA, and GPS (Required Navigational Performance, Required Time of Arrival, and Global Positioning System) capabilities with similar efficiency and performance to the newest production aircraft. In addition, the flight deck integration eliminates legacy CRT and Flight Management avionics, leverages recently developed advanced technology, and provides the flexibility to install future upgrades. The ISSC system includes an advanced flight management system, an integrated standby system, and primary flight displays. The system implements Data Link and ADS-B capabilities.

IS&S’s advanced Flight Management System and Global Positioning System Receivers have been selected in all three market segments of Air Transport, Military and Business Aviation. IS&S supplies Flight Management solutions to the commercial market for B-737, MD-80, MD-88 and MD-90. IS&S supplies the military market for C-130, L-100 and the Business market for the Eclipse E500 and E550 aircraft. These flight management systems are amongst the industries most advanced aircraft performance and navigation solutions. The dual IS&S precision Beta 3 GPS navigation system provides three-dimensional position and velocity information accurate to 10 feet. The IS&S dual redundant, RNP compliant Flight Management System continuously computes the aircraft flight path and updates steering commands to the flight crew and flight control system twenty times a second.

The RNP and GPS capabilities will enable the Delta MD-88/-90 aircraft to fly shorter flight paths and optimum idle-thrust descents, thereby reducing fuel consumption, carbon emissions, and noise levels.

“Adding RNP and GPS is a significant step in the future for the NextGen air traffic control system,” said Shahram Askarpour, President of Innovative Solutions & Support. “This upgrade will reduce fleet CO2 emission by an estimated 80 million pounds annually and the noise footprint of the MD-88/-90 aircraft by more than 50%.”

The IS&S system will provide further operational benefits to Delta, including standardized flight deck to support NextGen requirements, increased operational flexibility and reliability, improved dispatch and on time arrival availability and simplified maintenance. In addition the system will provide enhanced safety through improved situational awareness, and reduced crew workload.

The upgrade for the MD-88/-90 is adaptable to other aircraft types to facilitate compliance with NextGen requirements, including CPDLC, RNP, RTA, LPV and ADS-B and to provide substantial power and weight savings. The economic benefits of the upgrade are to shorten trip times, thereby reducing fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.

(Image provided by IS&S)

FMI: www.innovative-ss.com