This study provides new insights into aircraft plume behavior that greatly surpasses historic understanding, and data for more accurate modeling of plume rise and spread from commercial aircraft at airports. This final report completes individual analysis of the LAX data set, initially reported in the related Preliminary Report published in September 2002. Additional studies are planned (based on available funding) to analyze potential changes in the derived parameters due to site characteristics (e.g., elevation, weather conditions) and will be reported on as the work continues.

The United States (US) Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Office of Environment and Energy (AEE) has developed the System for assessing Aviation's Global Emissions (SAGE) with support from the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Volpe), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Logistics Management Institute (LMI). Currently at Version 1.5, SAGE is a high fidelity computer model used to predict aircraft fuel burn and emissions for all commercial (civil) flights globally in a given year. As part of SAGE development, this document has been prepared to provide detailed...