A 3-phase safe trajectory shaping for a distressed aircraft

Abstract

A statistical flight plan optimization framework is developed, and a simplified version solved for a hypothetical distress situation. The framework proposed herein attempts to increase overall survivability by evaluating and optimizing the probable outcome of various flight plans, given a statistical representation of the probable outcomes of each flight plan and their respective probabilities of success. This work attempts to solve the problem using a simplified probability model and safety metric. An airport grouping strategy that groups the airports prior to path derivation is also developed to identify the convex sub problems of the non convex, continuousdiscrete overall problem. The performance of this newly developed probabilistic trajectory algorithm is evaluated using numerical simulations which include variable failure rates to simulate different in-flight distress conditions, and multiple turns to accommodate realistic trajectories. The results show that it is possible to increase aircraft survivability by using this algorithm 1 2

Glide Control for Engine-Out Aircraft

“…The chosen landing site must be within this range for the sake of safety. It's different from the classical max range gliding problem and is also different from the flight plan optimization 2,15 . By the end of the descending maneuver, the aircraft must meet the final landing constraint (speed and attitude) to perform a safe touch down at landi ).…”

Dynamic programming for trajectory optimization of engine-out transportation aircraft

“…With this information, the reachable landing site can be determined according to some flight planner [5], [6]. …”

Novel probabilistic dynamic safety metric formulations for flight path determination

“…There are four algorithms in DART-MSOP architecture as shown in Figure 2 and further details can be found in the references. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] These four algorithms are: (a) low-fidelity initial turn algorithm; (b) high-fidelity paths with aborts; (c) guidance of a perpetual turning attitude aircraft to maneuvre to land safely, and (d) decision making. DART-MSOP is based on integration of four new algorithms developed that maximizes safe outcome probability after a distress event by incorporating an abort airport together with a model of current aircraft dynamics.…”