Systems and methods for flight management

Abstract

Systems and methods for flight management are provided. One flight control system is provided that includes a flight management system (32) configured to manage aircraft flight control including at least one of a flight path or an altitude for an aircraft (52). The flight control system also includes a flight parameter selection module (34) configured to determine a Cost Index (CI) and cruising altitude for use by the flight management system to manage the aircraft flight control, wherein the determination is based on a flight cost and predicted weather along the flight path.

Description

Background technique [0001] Aircraft are typically equipped with a flight management system (FMS) for managing aircraft flight controls, generating flight profile data and providing navigational information such as flight paths specified by waypoints (which are represented by navigational point coordinates). Additionally, the flight management control system can also be configured to provide aircraft engine throttle settings for manual or automatic control of engine thrust. [0002] The FMS calculates detailed flight trajectories and controls the navigation of the aircraft. Trajectories define lateral and vertical profiles, which include aircraft speeds along this profile, and are used by the FMS using route flight planning and other constraints such as altitude and speed constraints, and a cost index (CI), which is the ratio of time cost to fuel cost ) and develop. The FMS uses current aircraft status and atmospheric data along with all crew input or uplinked data from the ...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

However, many of the flight parameters including the cost index are fixed and do not take into account different weather conditions

Consequently, these conventional systems are used inefficiently, which adds cost to the overall flight

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