SUSTAINABLE AVIATION EXPERT

REDUCING AIRPLANES' CARBON EMISSIONS

- David Zingg

Imagine stepping onto an airplane. Its shape, sleek and unusual, is unlike any other aircraft you've seen. The engines purr rather than roar, the takeoff feels smoother, and best of allit's mostly powered by biofuel. This is the future of air travel as seen by Professor David Zingg, a leading voice in the field of sustainable aviation.

Sustainable Air Travel

Zingg teaches at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies. From 2006 to 2016, he guided the Institute as its director. Today, he leads the Institute's Centre for Research in Sustainable Aviation. Zingg is known for his innovative aircraft designs that push boundaries and promote sustainability. Like a sculptor shaping clay, Zingg works with the way air moves. Using computer models, he studies how air shapes itself around aircraft bodies. This understanding helps him reduce air resistance and design planes that glide smoothly through the air.

Toward the end of the 1990s, Zingg noticed that flight travel faced a huge challenge. The age of flying faster, higher, and further had changed into an era where the same things needed to be achieved but in a more sustainable way. Sustainability means using resources in a way that protects the planet and future generations. But it wasn't until the 2010s, when the negative impacts of burning fossil fuels became more widely accepted, that the idea of sustainability took hold.