contrails

Our roundup of the main aerospace and defense stories making the news this week.

The UK government and industry partners, including Google, have launched a large-scale contrail-avoidance trial on flights across the North Atlantic, one of the world’s contrail hot spots.

UK air navigation service provider NATS plans to stage a major contrail management trial later this year.

Beta begins eIPP demonstrations, South Korea’s hybrid eVTOL plan, DJI first fixed-wing drone and Gulfstream explores SAF and contrails.

Honda eVTOL flies; helping to avoid contrails; bio-based carbon fiber advances; Korea’s engine independence bid; and Airbus’ Canadian tech hub.

A new platform designed to make estimates of the climate impact of contrails more accessible has been unveiled by research organization Contrails.org.

NASA’s X-plane call; batteries for eR66; air-to-fuel SAF process; and volatiles key to contrails.

German aerospace research center DLR has released the results of the flight tests conducted with Airbus and CFM International in 2023.

Nuclear fusion rocket power; Matrix autonomy joins the Army; ship-to-shore contested logistics; and sulfur’s role in contrails formation.

Airbus is leading a flight test campaign to measure the effect of sulfur content in jet fuel on contrail formation and mitigation.

Truncated flight for X-59; UK Royal Mail flies electric; contrail avoidance success; and high-voltage electric demo.

Contrails represent a significant but concentrated share of aviation’s climate impact—about 5% of flights generate up to 80% of the effect.

Contrails and their effects—cited by scientists as the main source of non-CO2 climate emissions—are notoriously difficult to characterize and measure.

A German project has concluded that further research is needed before contrail-avoidance procedures can be used in regular airline operations.

Environmental group Transport & Environment has called for targeted contrail mitigation on winter transatlantic night flights, based on a new data analysis.

Hybrid focus for Clean Aviation; exhaust additives reduce contrails; point-to-point cargo eVTOL demo; and anti-jamming for urban air taxis.

A U.S. researcher has proposed adding ice-nucleating particles to engine exhaust to make contrails less harmful by shortening their lifespan.

GoAero eVTOL prize progress; wind farm radar clutter; Archer licenses tiltrotor tech; and JAL expands atmospheric sampling.

The UK has launched the first government-supported research projects under a new program to understand the climate contribution of non-CO2 aircraft emissions.

Aviation can minimize its climate impact by acting quickly to control short-lived climate pollutants, notably contrails, an influential NGO says.

Printing small turbines; cooling hybrid-electric; non-CO2 effects limit SAF; and Hamburg research projects.

Cambridge University’s Aviation Impact Accelerator unveils a blueprint for global contrail mitigation as a research study underlines a need for urgent steps.

An international research study says action needs to be taken now on contrails and every year of inaction raises the likelihood of a “significant climate risk.”

Despite gains, the path to aviation net zero looks uncertain.

Since the beginning of the year, European airlines have been required to report non-CO2 effects. That data could help redefine aviation climate legislation.