Aircraft fuel consumption and emissions during cruise, effect of the jet stream

Article presents the results of fuel consumption calculation during cruise compared to remaining aircraft flight phases. Based on fuel consumption, methodology of pollutants quantitative estimation emitted by turbine engines has been developed. Material provides evaluation results of aircraft CO2, CO and NOx effusion using fuel consumption data taken from aircraft Flight Data Recorder (FDR) during cruise of various aircraft types. Knowledge of the amount of aircraft emissions on high altitudes is very important for climatologists in order to understand eventual changes in the Earth atmosphere due to aviation activities. The authors would like to draw attention of the aviation professionals to the fact that aircraft fuel consumption during cruise; thereby amount of toxic content in the exhaust from the turbine engine is significantly higher especially during flights against jet stream. Thousands flights of two operators were processed using algorithms developed by authors. The article gives an example of fuel consumption and thereby CO2, CO and NOx emission estimation based on engine performance taken from their test cell results. Calculations were performed with the consideration of the factor for engines deterioration through operation time provided by its manufacturer.