The 618th Air and Space Operations Center, also known as the Tanker Airlift Control Center, tracks flight efficiencies for U.S. Air Force aircraft. In 2006, it started collecting metrics on over 1,100 aircraft and 105,000 annual flights to identify cost savings from more efficient routes. By working with international agencies and obtaining route changes, the Center has saved over $3 million per year in fuel and emissions. It uses the data to advocate for upgrades to flight planning systems to enable even greater efficiencies in the future.
1. 618TH Air and Space Operations Center
(Tanker Airlift Control Center)
Flight Efficiencies
618 TACC/XOCZF
"Unrivaled Global Reach for America … ALWAYS!" 1
3. How the US Army/Marines
See Us
618 AOC (TACC)
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4. How We See Ourselves
FY2012
618 AOC (TACC)
■ Aircraft – 1,155 (C17, C5, KC10, KC135,
C130)
■ Sorties – 105,773
■ Passengers – 1,895,086
■Cargo – 661,344 Short tons or 599,839
Metric Tons
■ Flying Hours – 422,401
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5. Want to Fly the Most Cost
Effective Route But:
618 AOC (TACC)
■ Flight planning system’s replacement currently
unfunded
■ No replacement system expected prior to
CY16/17
■ Current Flight Planning System
● Manually intensive
● Does not easily support dynamic airspace
● Relies on company routes
● Does not ingest anything but AIRAC data,
everything else is manually inputted
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6. Office Saw a Need to Track
Efficiencies To Build Business Cases
To Lobby For Flight Efficiencies
618 AOC (TACC)
■ Started collecting the following metrics on an Excel spreadsheet in
2006:
● Type aircraft: C17, C5, KC10, KC135, & C130
● Number of sorties flown
● Time or Fuel saved which is the converted into
– $USD savings
– US Gallons saved
– CO2 saved
– Flight Time Saved
■ Spreadsheet uses only historic data and is verified by AMC’s Fuel
Efficiency Office and Financial Managers
■ Allows office to track savings and build business cases to lobby
ANSPs for routing/altitude changes
■ Became an official USAF program subject to annual reviews in 2012
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7. EXAMPLES
LERT
618 AOC (TACC)
-USAF aircraft avoided Portugal due to diplomatic reasons
- Able to obtain clearances but no RAD compliant route available
- Worked with Eurocontrol, Portugal, and Spain at RAD meetings to
build a RAD compliant route
TIME 5+53
- New Route saves the USAF $719K/73.7K Gallons/1.6M CO2 per year
PROPOSED
TIME 4+06
CURRENT
TIME 5+25
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8. TB6
618 AOC (TACC)
- Netherland’s Military could no longer support 24/7 ops on TB6
- GAT routing was 7 minutes longer
- Eurocontrol called all parties together
- TB6 remained opened
- Saved the USAF $1.5M/110.8K gallons/ and emitted 2.4M less CO2 per
year
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9. ETAR
618 AOC (TACC)
- Aircraft must descend to non-optimal attitudes coming from the east into ETAR
- Worked with DFS, IATA, and Eurocontrol and developed several proposals
- Final proposal would save USAF $144K/87K Gallons/1.9M Ibs of CO2
- Waiting final approval
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