Aircraft Glide Range Display for Emergency Landing Guidance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Pilots face challenges in determining the glide distance and suitable landing locations for an aircraft during engine failure, as existing systems lack accurate and automated methods to estimate the aircraft's gliding range and provide reliable emergency landing guidance.
Innovation Solution
A system utilizing a processor to detect all engine failures, determine aerodynamic and environmental attributes, calculate the maximum gliding distance, and generate a display of potential landing locations and flight plans to assist the pilot in emergency landings.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If the pilot manually estimates the gliding range based on current altitude, then the system complexity is reduced, but the measurement precision and reliability of the glide distance determination deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The flight management system automatically calculates and displays the gliding range using aircraft performance data, aerodynamic attributes, and environmental conditions without requiring pilot manual estimation, thereby improving measurement precision while maintaining acceptable system complexity through automated self-service functionality
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical/manual estimation process with an automated computer-based calculation system that processes aerodynamic and environmental attributes to determine gliding range, substituting human judgment with algorithmic computation to enhance measurement precision
2Loss of information
If the flight management system shuts down during engine failure, then the loss of information increases, but the device complexity is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The system is designed to detect engine failure conditions and automatically activate emergency gliding assistance functionality before the flight management system completely shuts down, preserving critical information about gliding range and suitable landing locations through pre-configured emergency protocols
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts and isolates the essential emergency gliding calculation and display functions from the main flight management system, allowing these critical functions to operate independently even when the broader flight management system shuts down, thereby minimizing information loss during engine failure
3Ease of operation
If the pilot must determine suitable landing locations without automated guidance, then the ease of operation is reduced, but the device complexity is minimized
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically identifies and displays suitable landing locations based on the calculated gliding range and environmental conditions, freeing the pilot from manually searching for landing sites and significantly improving ease of operation during emergency landings
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary display system that presents processed information about suitable landing locations to the pilot, acting as a mediator between the complex calculation engine and the pilot's decision-making process, thereby simplifying the user interface while maintaining sophisticated backend functionality
Data Source
AI summary
A system for assisting an aircraft in an emergency landing includes a processor with a non-transitory processor-readable medium storing processor-executable code. The processor-executable code causes the processor to detect an all engine failure of an aircraft. In response to the detected all engine failure, the processor-executable code further causes the processor to determine at least one of an aerodynamic and environmental attribute associated with the aircraft and a descent rate of the aircraft based on the at least one aerodynamic and environmental attribute, calculate a maximum distance the aircraft can travel without engine power based on at least one of the attribute and descent rate; calculate a range for the aircraft based on the maximum distance; and generate a display of the range and provide the display to a display system of the aircraft.