Flight Plan Terminal Management via Mirror Memory Substitution
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Solution Overview
Problem
Air traffic control instructions, such as changes in landing runways, often require pilots to modify flight plans, leading to reiterations of navigation procedures, which can result in unaccounted modifications and increased workload due to the need to differentiate between active and inactive waypoints, especially in dense air traffic zones.
Innovation Solution
A system with a mirror memory that stores and manages modified navigation procedures, allowing for substitution and filtering of changes based on operational criteria, enabling pilots to easily switch between modified and published versions, reducing the risk of compliance errors.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If pilots manually modify flight plans to comply with air traffic control instructions, then the flight plan can be updated to reflect current operational requirements, but the workload increases and the risk of errors rises due to reiteration of navigation procedures
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-loads multiple published navigation procedures (approach, departure, airway procedures) into the flight management computer before flight. When air traffic control instructions require changes, the system can quickly substitute pre-loaded procedures without requiring pilots to manually search and enter new procedures during critical phases of flight, thereby reducing workload while maintaining compliance.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates and manages copies of published navigation procedures in its database. When a procedure needs to be modified or substituted due to air traffic control instructions, the system works with copied procedure data rather than requiring re-entry from scratch, enabling rapid updates while preserving the original published procedures for future use.
2Reliability
If pilots differentiate between active and inactive waypoints during flight plan modifications, then the correct procedure can be followed, but the complexity of operation increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically manages the status of navigation procedures, automatically tracking which procedures are active and which are inactive based on flight progress and air traffic control instructions. This dynamic management eliminates the need for pilots to manually track and differentiate between active and inactive procedures, reducing operational complexity while ensuring correct procedure execution.
Solution Approach 2:
The system provides feedback to the flight crew about the status of navigation procedures, indicating which procedures are currently active and which have been superseded. This feedback mechanism helps pilots understand the current flight plan state without requiring them to manually differentiate between active and inactive waypoints, thereby reducing operational complexity.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple published navigation procedures are chained together to define the terminal part of the route, then the flight plan can accommodate complex air traffic patterns, but the time required to manage and modify these procedures increases
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple published navigation procedures are pre-loaded and stored in the flight management computer before flight. This preliminary action enables the system to quickly assemble and modify complex terminal routes by combining pre-loaded procedures, eliminating the time-consuming process of manually searching for and entering each procedure during flight, while maintaining the ability to accommodate complex air traffic patterns.
Solution Approach 2:
The system merges multiple published navigation procedures into a unified flight plan structure, automatically managing the chaining and coordination of approach, departure, and airway procedures. This merging capability allows complex terminal routes to be managed as an integrated whole rather than as separate discrete procedures, significantly reducing the time required to manage modifications while maintaining adaptability to various air traffic patterns.
Data Source
AI summary
The management system plots the route to be flown in a flight plan, at least partially, by a chaining of published navigation procedures accessible from a NavDB navigation database and constituted of sequences of waypoints and/or turn points associated with specific flight constraints. It comprises a mirror memory storing the latest versions of the published navigation procedures, modified by the crew of the aircraft during the progress of the flight plan and means of substituting these latest versions stored in the mirror memory for the published versions of the navigation procedures during a change in the route predicted in the flight plan obtained by a new chaining of navigation procedures, some of which are taken from the preceding chaining. This makes it possible, during a change of navigation procedure, to take account of specific flight constraints already entered during the progress of the flight but not appearing in the published navigation procedures.