"The work performed to develop scenarios for global forecasting capabilities from 2035 to 2050 is underlined for SST, SSBJ, and UAM as follows:
SST: A bottom-up forecast methodology is devised for the commercial supersonic forecast from 2025 to 2050. The results for the high demand scenario for the future forecast years 2035 to 2050 provide a meaningful SST network with enough yearly operation to support a sizable SST fleet. The CO2 emissions from high demand scenarios are not insignificant but they represent a small portion of global CO2 emissions. The low demand scenario represents a very small viable SST network.
SSBJ: High and low demand scenarios are considered in the study to forecast the SSBJ demand from 2025 to 2050 over a period of 5-year interval. It is interesting to compare the outcome of the supersonic business aviation forecast to the supersonic commercial forecast. In terms of the estimated number of daily flights in 2035 and 2050, the estimates are in the same order of magnitude. However, the number of routes served by SSBJs is estimated to be one order of magnitude higher than SSTs. As a result, the key characteristic of business aviation (unscheduled) movements is well-reflected.
UAM: The development of a top-down methodology to forecast the demand for UAM services from 2035 to 2050 time period for global more than 500 cities have been the focus of UAM research. The results suggest that a strong demand exists for UAM services for a set of different UAM ticket prices. The demand grows exponentially when the price drops below $3 per passenger-km, this value is, of course, a global average and can be adjusted according to the cost-of-living index for each city, country, or geographical region.
The forecasted scenarios and projected fleet information in each area of study has been provided to the the Topic Manager. This data and analysis can be used to better inform the Technology Evaluator (TE) enabling it to better predict future scenarios that include the advanced configurations investigated in this study. This work was presented at the 2020 TE Annual Review Meeting (virtual) hosted by the Topic Manager, DLR.
The results of the study were published in multiple venues including conferences and the publications listed:
""Estimating supersonic commercial aircraft market and resulting CO2 emissions using public movement data"" CEAS Aeronautical Journal, Springer, 2021
“A Methodology for Supersonic Commercial Market Estimation and Environmental Impact Evaluation (Part I)” Aerospace Europe Conference 2020 in Bordeaux, France
“A Top-Down Methodology for Global Urban Air Mobility Demand Estimation” AIAA Aviation 2020 conference (virtual)
“A Comprehensive Framework for Supersonic Commercial Market Estimation and Environmental Impact Evaluation” AIAA Aviation 2020 conference (virtual)
""Estimating Global Supersonic Business Aviation Flight Movements and Environmental Impact” AIAA SciTech 2021 Conference (virtual)
""A Scenario-Based Evaluation of Global Urban Air Mobility Demand"" AIAA SciTech 2021 Conference (virtual)"