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Heroes

These women are bucking stereotypes and building a product that’s disrupting an industry.

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If Beyoncé is to be believed, women run the world.

GIF via "Run the World (Girls)."

But in STEM careers, women are often underrepresented.

According to the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, only about 14% of engineers in the workforce are women.

Now, the root cause of this problem is a complicated one, and it starts early. As a society, we tend to condition ourselves to believe in inherently flawed gender roles. Little boys play with Legos while little girls play with dolls. And this imbalance affects the careers people see themselves in and aspire to. Throw a lack of representation and unconscious bias on top of that, and we find ourselves with a system that’s inherently flawed in ways that are difficult to resolve.

Things may be changing for the better, though.

Just this year, Dartmouth made history when the Thayer School of Engineering graduated a class that was 54% female. No other national research university had ever granted more bachelor's degrees in engineering to women than men.

Pratt & Whitney is part of this larger trend. Their female engineers are bucking the status quo.

GIFs via United Technologies.

And what they’re working on is shaking things up, too. They’re building Geared Turbofan Engines — and they're game-changing.

If that isn't impressive enough, this engine is up to 75% quieter than the standard engine. These engines are greener, they save on fuel, and they're quieter — good riddance, air and noise pollution.

The aviation industry is growing.

And the number of commercial aircraft is increasing — it should more than double in the next 20 years. Innovations like this engine are forward-looking, sustainable solutions to that growth — and the diverse talent building it is a sign of even more progress.

With all of these advancements, the future is looking bright.

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Heroes

The sky is about to get quieter, thanks to these innovations in air travel.

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If you live near an airport or have driven by one, you may have noticed something: Planes are pretty loud.

That's gotta get old. Image via iStock.

There are 87,000 flights in the sky on any given day in the United States. That's a lot of air travel. What does that mean for the people on the ground looking up?

For the millions of people who live in communities surrounding airports, plane noise from takeoff and landing is part of their everyday life.

It's a constant noise that can be frustrating and take a toll on the mind and body.

According to a study in the NIH's Environmental Health Perspectives journal, the impact of noise exposure goes beyond hearing impairment and can also negatively affect blood pressure, stress levels, and sleep.

Noise isn't the only concern with all the air traffic. The environment feels it, too.

Similar to other transportation vehicles, airplanes release many pollutants into the air. With the industry's growth in size comes more noise and pollution.

Air traffic worldwide. GIF via pinyponsi_cgr/YouTube.

This may seem like it only affects people living near airports, but with air travel demand expected to double in the next 20 years, the demand for flights and airports to host them is only going to increase.

For many people, traveling less isn't an option. So innovators have come up with some more realistic solutions for the environmental and noise pollution problems.

What about a plane that's 100% powered by solar energy?

Solar Impulse 2, changing the aviation game. Image via Steve Jurvetson/Flickr.

There's one out there now! It's called the Solar Impulse 2, and instead of using jet fuel, it generates electricity from the solar panels on its 236-foot wingspan. Incredible.

It's going to be a while before any of us step foot on a plane operated in this capacity, but the fact that clean energy is part of the conversation — and is working — is huge.

Or, for instance, a plane engine that's 75% quieter.

PurePower Geared TurboFan Engine. Image by Pratt & Whitney, used with permission.

The company, Pratt & Whitney, has spent the last two decades developing a new engine for airplanes called the PurePower Geared Turbofan engine, which entered into commercial service January 2016. Their goal was to make an engine that is quieter and more sustainable for the Earth, and so far they’re delivering.

Their new engine reduces the plane's noise footprint by 75%, which means a whopping 500,000 fewer people can hear the aircraft taking off compared to a typical plane without it.

That's a lot of lives no longer interrupted by the sound of a plane overhead. And because of that, airports could potentially extend runway hours to allow for more service.

Technologies for better air traffic control make airplanes way more efficient.

The Federal Aviation Administration has been working on modernizing the nation's air traffic control system through what it calls NextGen. Instead of relying on old-school radar-based tracking for air traffic control, the NextGen technology uses more satellite procedures.

According to The Dallas Morning News:

"This technology promises GPS-based tracking as well as new data sharing and communication tools that will allow for more efficient flight paths, better navigation through inclement weather and quicker taxiing times on takeoff and landing.

That increased efficiency translates to fuel and cost savings for airlines, fewer delays for passengers and less air and noise pollution."

The coalition ASCENT is all about reducing the environmental impact of aviation.

The group, made up of 16 leading U.S. research universities and over 60 private-sector stakeholders, is figuring out how to reduce noise, improve air quality, and reduce the climate impact of aviation today.

Through research, ASCENT (the Aviation Sustainability Center) is rethinking the technology, operations, planning, and sustainability within the industry. It's quite a big job.

There is no one single solution to overcome the noise and environmental impact of the planes in our sky.

But it is encouraging to see how much more we know now, and how companies are realizing that more sustainable and greener operations aren't just good for the world, but good for their bottom line.

Flights are cheaper and more accessible than ever before. We should be able to fly to our destinations without harming the Earth — and the people in our path.

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Heroes

They spent 20 years developing this aircraft engine. Can it change the future of aviation?

True

At any given moment, there are about 5,000 planes flying above the United States.

87,000 flights take place per day. Millions of flights per year. And that's just the United States.

With that volume of air traffic, needless to say, a new type of aircraft engine — one that produces 75% less noise for those on the ground and burns 16% less fuel — is a huge deal for both people and the planet.

It’s called the PurePower^® Geared Turbofan™ engine, and after 20 years in development at Pratt & Whitney, a division of United Technologies, it’s going to change the game of aviation.

See for yourself what makes this engine so special:

So what’s the secret? The basic concept is this: Pratt & Whitney’s engine is designed with a high bypass ratio, meaning that 12 times the amount of airflow passes around the engine’s core versus going through the core itself, which makes the engine more efficient overall.

Higher efficiency means less fuel burn, and less fuel burn means fewer emissions.

Still not impressed? Here's the kicker: This new aircraft engine reduces annual carbon dioxide emissions by 3,600 metric tons per plane.

At a time when our environment is in serious need of some tender loving care, cutting our carbon footprint in any way we can is more important than ever.

But even we'll admit that 3,600 metric tons of carbon dioxide is pretty hard to visualize. So what does that actually mean?

It's the equivalent of 766 cars being taken off the road for an entire year.

Calculated differently, that's 279,574 cars being taken off the road for a day — only a few thousand cars shy of the daily traffic crossing from New Jersey into New York City.

What if nearly all the cars driving into NYC simply didn’t show up one day? The resulting reduction of carbon dioxide would be equivalent to a single PurePower engine.

It's also equivalent to more than 4.6 million households using absolutely no electricity for 24 hours.

About 4,660,000 households, actually.

That’s like if everyone who lives in New York City (3 million households) Los Angeles (1.3 million households), and Las Vegas (213,000 households) used no electricity whatsoever for 24 hours.

It's even equivalent to 5,419 people going vegetarian for a whole year.

Typical meat eaters have a bigger carbon footprint than vegetarians — even those who only eat the USDA recommended 0.21 pound of meat per day (or less).

Have you ever considered going vegetarian for a year to reduce your impact on the environment? How about convincing 5,418 people to do it with you? Your collective impact would equal that of just one PurePower engine.

Chances are, commuters aren’t just going to suddenly stop driving into NYC. But that’s why innovations like this aircraft engine are so important.

As Pratt & Whitney Engineer Monica Dujic explains, “There is a future in aviation that can help the environment ... and the people around you.”

Now that is something worth celebrating.

pratt whitney

These women are bucking stereotypes and building a product that’s disrupting an industry.

If Beyoncé is to be believed, women run the world.

But in STEM careers, women are often underrepresented.

Things may be changing for the better, though.

And what they’re working on is shaking things up, too. They’re building Geared Turbofan Engines — and they're game-changing.

The aviation industry is growing.

The sky is about to get quieter, thanks to these innovations in air travel.

If you live near an airport or have driven by one, you may have noticed something: Planes are pretty loud.

For the millions of people who live in communities surrounding airports, plane noise from takeoff and landing is part of their everyday life.

Noise isn't the only concern with all the air traffic. The environment feels it, too.

What about a plane that's 100% powered by solar energy?

Or, for instance, a plane engine that's 75% quieter.

Technologies for better air traffic control make airplanes way more efficient.

The coalition ASCENT is all about reducing the environmental impact of aviation.

There is no one single solution to overcome the noise and environmental impact of the planes in our sky.

They spent 20 years developing this aircraft engine. Can it change the future of aviation?

At any given moment, there are about 5,000 planes flying above the United States.

Still not impressed? Here's the kicker: This new aircraft engine reduces annual carbon dioxide emissions by 3,600 metric tons per plane.

It's the equivalent of 766 cars being taken off the road for an entire year.

It's also equivalent to more than 4.6 million households using absolutely no electricity for 24 hours.

It's even equivalent to 5,419 people going vegetarian for a whole year.

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