RAeS Greener by Design Webinar: Contrail Management - UK trials Operation Blue Skies

Operation Blue Skies is a proposed airspace contrail trial in North Atlantic Airspace, initially recommended by the Department for Transport's Jet Zero Council. This webinar focuses on verifying contrail mitigation at an airspace scale to determine what level of observationally verified contrail mitigation is possible under the constraints of airspace with minimal disruption to both ANSPs and operators.

The session features Paul Hodgson, Google Technical Lead for Operation Blue Skies, who leverages AI forecasting and observational systems to demonstrate contrail avoidance at an airspace scale. Dr Hodgson also serves as Technical Fellow at contrails.org and a teaching Bye-Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge. His background includes a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Cambridge, where he subsequently led the Aviation Impact Accelerator as Technical Director at the Whittle Laboratory, developing system models to help industry and policymakers map the path to climate-neutral aviation. His research and development experience spans energy and climate technologies across academia and industry, including sustainable aviation, biofuel production, carbon capture and hydrogen systems.

This webinar is part of the RAeS Greener by Design Series, a comprehensive programme examining various aspects of sustainable aviation, including contrail management, hydrogen fuel cells, SAF mandates and supply chain logistics.