Fast Company reporter Melissa Locker writes that researchers from MIT and NASA have developed a new kind of airplane wing made up of hundreds of tiny identical pieces that can change shape mid-flight. Locker explains that the new design “means the wing could transform to be optimal for each step, making flying much more efficient.”
In a guest post for the Financial Times, DUSP research affiliate Ashley Nunes argues that airline customers should be willing to pay more for safety in the wake of the recent aviation disasters.
Writing for The Washington Post, research affiliate Ashley Nunes examines the impact of countries around the world banning the Boeing 737 Max 8 from operating in their airspace. “If airlines start to believe that there is something inherently wrong with Boeing’s prized offering — or, even worse, if consumers start to identify the new 737 models as unsafe — it will have serious ramifications for Boeing,” writes Nunes.
A study led by Prof. John Hansman suggests that slower planes would significantly reduce noise on the ground. “It turns out engines aren’t the major culprit anymore,” writes Scott McCartney for The Wall Street Journal. “It’s the “whoosh” that big airplanes make racing through the air.”
Wall Street Journal reporter Robert Lee Hotz writes that MIT engineers have developed a flexible airplane wing that could improve a plane’s fuel consumption by improving the wing’s aerodynamics. Hotz explains that the wing’s “elastic airfoil can morph continuously to reduce drag, increase stall angle, and reduce vibration control flutter.”
According to a new MIT study, airlines could handle flight delays more equitably by distributing them among themselves, reports Lloyd Mallison for Boston.com. The new system “would mean that two hypothetical planes could both have a 15-minute delay rather than one having no delay, and one having a 30-minute wait,” Mallison explains.
Rob Britton writes for The Huffington Post about a new paper by Professor Bill Swelbar on the high subsidies provided to several Gulf airlines by their governments: Swelbar argues that “massive subsidies provided to Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways, are harming airline service to and from small and medium-sized communities.”
Professor John Hansman reflects on the two Malaysian airliners lost in 2014 in this Boston Globe article. “It appears that in 2014 more people perished from terrorist acts in commercial aviation than all other aviation accident causes combined,” writes Hansman.
Erika Fry writes for Fortune about the spread of infectious diseases, highlighting a study by researchers from MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering that examines how infectious diseases could spread worldwide through air transportation. The researchers developed a metric to rank and predict which U.S. airports would be the most influential spreaders of a disease.