...ora ci sono sul serio...
http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2014/02/18/uniteds-new-plan-for-saving-fuel-more-wings/
da United:
We are first airline to fly with new Split Scimitar Winglets
We flew a Boeing 737-800 aircraft on Tuesday freshly retrofitted with new Split Scimitar Winglets, marking the first commercial flight to operate with the advanced winglet technology and a key milestone in our plan to reduce fuel costs by $1 billion annually by 2017.
The aircraft, number 277, made its first flight with the winglets from IAH to LAX as Flight 1273.
Our employees installed the innovative winglets, designed by Aviation Partners Boeing (APB), at our maintenance facility at MCO (Orlando, Fla.) after the FAA approved the modification earlier this month. Last year, we leased a 737-800 aircraft to APB for flight testing of the Split Scimitar, and employees from across the company were actively involved in supporting the test program.
“We are the first airline in the world to fly with the Split Scimitar Winglet. This will make our aircraft more fuel efficient and environmentally friendly, which is a win for everybody,” said Fleet Strategy Senior Manager James Larson. “Being involved in a project like this requires a lot of teamwork and we appreciate the hard work of our co-workers in Engineering, Maintenance and Flight Ops. They made this possible.”
The Split Scimitar Winglet offers significant aircraft drag reduction over the basic Blended Winglet configuration currently on our 737s. As a result, the winglet will reduce fuel burn by up to 2 percent per aircraft. Once the Split Scimitar Winglet installation is complete, we expect the combined winglet technology on our 737, 757 and 767 fleets to save us more than $200 million per year in jet fuel costs.