Operational Efficiency of Special Use Airspace Through Highly-Modular Designs

Since the early 2000s, airspace has been considered a national resource shared between military and civil users. Increased access to airspace for the military is critical for training and force generation of 4th, 5th and, in future 6th generation fighters that have ever-increasing performance envelopes. The design and management of airspace also influences aircraft fuel efficiency and emissions, contributing to national sustainable aviation programmes. Given the increasing demand for airspace and its finite quantity, greater efficiencies must be found in how it is used. We propose that special use airspace (SUA) / reserved airspace (RSA) must be as flexible as the civil flights that fly around it. This means that by designing and configuring SUA according to the changing daily military requirements and wind-influenced flight plans, benefits can be gained in airspace productivity and operational efficiency. The central thesis of this paper is that the future challenge for airspace management does not lie in static designs, but in daily reconfigurable airspace. We first describe the concepts for highly-modular airspace and the potential training benefits for the military through more productive airspace. With these concepts we consider how special use airspace, when not fully utilised, could be released to civil users in a way that provides operational and environmental benefits. This is accomplished with our airspace optimisation tool, ‘AirOpt”. We conclude that daily reconfigurable airspace will increase the productivity of military exercises, serving to increase air force capability, and reduce civil aviation emissions by up to 0.2%, which is proportionate to the benefits of ‘Free Route Airspace”.