FAA REDAC Subcommittee on Environment and Energy

August 2015 Meeting

Findings and Recommendations

The Environment and Energy Subcommittee of the FAA Research, Engineering and Development 

Advisory Committee (REDAC) met in Washington, DC on August 6 - 7, 2015. Following is the report on 

the outcome of this meeting. The recommendations offered are all for inclusion in the REDAC report. 

There are no recommendations from this meeting for the letter to the Administrator.

Finding (1):

Noise continues to be a significant challenge for the implementation of Performance Based Navigation 

(PBN) for operational efficiency improvements, which are a critical element of NextGen.

Recommendation (1):

In the near term, the FAA should ensure that the operational procedure development and 

implementation work is continued. Effective community and airport engagement techniques are an 

especially important part of the implementation. The recent reductions in the F&E budget could result 

in undesired delays in the development and implementation of these procedures. 

To increase the success-rate of implementing PBN-based procedures, it is necessary to better 

understand the impacts of these procedures and define acceptability criteria for their use. In addition to 

the recommendations made at the March 2015 subcommittee meeting, the subcommittee recommends

the FAA initiate research to understand the additional annoyance due to the noise focusing aspects of 

PBN. We would recommend you follow this work with research to develop ATM and/or operational 

concepts that will mitigate the identified noise impacts from PBN implementation. The safety and 

efficiency aspects of these changes would need to be considered. Finally, we recommend that the FAA 

use the knowledge gained from this research to develop the necessary mission support tools, policies 

and procedures to inform decision-making.

Finding (2):

We commend the FAA/AEE for vigorously leveraging the efforts of, and working with, other divisions of 

the FAA, other government agencies, (e.g., EPA, NASA, DOE, DOD), and industry and utilizing available 

databases to advance the Environment and Energy R&D portfolio. A recent example is their use of the

Medicare and Women Health Initiative medical databases to understand if there is a correlation 

between aircraft noise exposure and health impacts.
Recommendation (2):

The subcommittee encourages FAA to continue to find additional collaboration opportunities. With 

regards to using databases from other fields of study, the appropriateness and limitations of the 

databases to support the objectives of the study should be considered.

Finding (3):

The CLEEN program tasks are ending in 2015. The subcommittee is very pleased with the successes 

from the CLEEN Program in achieving the maturation and validation of a wide suite of technologies that 

will reduce noise, emissions and fuel burn from the aircraft fleet.

Recommendation (3):

The subcommittee recommends the FAA continue to implement and execute the second phase of 

CLEEN (known as CLEEN II) to mature technologies as they will enable the achievement of the CLEEN II 

goals for noise, emissions and fuel burn reductions.

Finding (4):

The Environment and Energy R&D portfolio have delivered significant results, and the FAA are doing a 

better job of communicating these successes, but there is more needed to highlight these in public 

communications. 

Recommendation (4):

The subcommittee recommends the FAA make these accomplishments visible broadly. FAA has taken 

significant steps here by developing websites for CLEEN and ASCENT COE, publishing CLEEN Fact Sheets 

summarizing the CLEEN program’s significant accomplishments, and developing brochures on the FAA’s 

Environmental and Energy Strategy. The Subcommittee is impressed with the quality of these materials 

and they recommend that they be communicated broadly. The subcommittee encourages regular 

updates to these to highlight recent accomplishments and to continue developing additional 

communication materials such as a new Environment and Energy website for the FAA.

Finding (5):

Based on the information presented by the FAA at the Subcommittee meeting, the Subcommittee feels 

the Environment and Energy R&D portfolio is reasonably balanced in terms of the resource allocation 

among technologies, tools, policy / standards development, sustainable alternative fuels, and ATM and 

operations improvements. 

Recommendation (5):

As the aviation environmental tool suite effort matures from development to implementation and use in 

decision making, including standard setting and other policy making efforts, there may be opportunities 

to strengthen the R&D efforts on operational improvements within the Environment and Energy 
portfolio. These have been negatively impacted due to the F&E funding reductions in the past three

years. The need to better understand the impact of aviation emissions on climate should also be 

considered in this Environment and Energy R&D portfolio planning. The subcommittee encourages the 

FAA to leverage efforts with ACRP studies like enhanced data gathering on noise and emissions impacts. 

The regular evaluation of the Environment and Energy R&D portfolio should be continued with 

consideration of “what does it take to be where we need to be in 2025 and beyond”. To achieve these 

goals, additional collaborative technology development would be required.

Finding (6):

The environmental impacts of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are going to be a growing issue. Given 

the recent surge in the number of UAS operation approvals, there is a need to get ahead of this issue.

Recommendation (6):

The subcommittee recommends that the FAA start plans to assess and understand the noise impact of 

UAS. This would include development of assessment tools and impact mitigation concepts. 

Finding (7):

Real-time information-based decision making represents an opportunity for improving the operational 

efficiency and environmental impact of air vehicles.

Recommendation (7):

The subcommittee recommends that the FAA support research to develop technology that enables 

integration of relayed information (e.g., weather, 4D trajectories, etc) with cockpit information. This will 

enable higher levels of onboard automation and the ability to further reduce the environmental impacts 

from aviation.