captjns

New Landings Save Airplane Fuel - US News and World Report

We were trying to figure out a proper name for that profile descente when we were cleared from cruise altitude all the way down to the approach when flying night cargo in the old 727.

But seriously folks it has been a proven procedure all over Europe for both fuel savings and noise reduction. Airlines that fail to follow CDAs abroad receive nasty grams from the airport authority.

Our FAA as usual “Leading the trailing edge of technology.”

rememberaloha

I get these types of clearances all the time when I fly into Canadian airports. Makes a lot of sense. I love being at FL340 and hearing "cleared to 3,000". Soo much easier too, one descent without all the adjusting of power and airplane profiles.

FlyByCable

UPS has been approved for these for awhile now. No big deal.

captjns

One does not need approval for a CDA as it SOP and good practice in energy management.

jtf560

It will be well into the future before we see this on a regular basis for day time ops around the US. The FAA just doesn't have the ability to control air traffic like that when the airspace is busy. UPS is a great test case that is proving how well it can work, but they also are testing ADSB (or however it's supposed to be written) to make it work. Unfortunately, until we all have ADSB and the FAA is thoroughly modernized (good luck with that) it isn't going to be something we do here.