Flight Plan Management System Previewing Update Impacts
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current flight management systems do not provide flight crews with information about the impact of recommended updates to active flight plans before they are inserted, leading to a lack of awareness and potential operational inefficiencies or safety risks.
Innovation Solution
A system and method for in-flight management of active flight plans that includes a flight management system, a communications system, a display device, and a controller. The controller receives flight mission data from external sources, generates an inactive flight plan with recommended updates, assesses the potential impact of these updates, and renders a graphical preview on the display device for crew review before accepting or rejecting the updates.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If flight crews manually review and insert updates into the active flight plan without impact information, then the flight plan can be updated efficiently, but the crew lacks awareness of the impact of updates leading to potential safety risks
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by generating an inactive flight plan with recommended updates and calculating their potential impacts before the crew reviews them. This advance preparation allows the crew to see both the updates and their impacts simultaneously, making informed decisions without delaying the update process.
Solution Approach 2:
The inactive flight plan serves as an intermediary between the recommended updates and the active flight plan. It allows the system to present updates in a controlled manner with their impacts clearly displayed, acting as a buffer that prevents direct, unexamined changes to the active plan while maintaining operational efficiency.
2Loss of information
If the system generates and processes inactive flight plans with impact analysis, then crew awareness of update impacts is improved, but the system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The flight management system is enhanced with multi-functionality to handle both active and inactive flight plans. The same core flight management components are extended to manage inactive plans and calculate impacts, rather than adding entirely separate systems. This allows the system to perform multiple functions (active plan management, inactive plan generation, impact analysis) using integrated processes.
3Reliability
If the system presents contextual preview of recommended updates with impact information, then crew decision-making is improved, but the time required to process updates increases
Solution Approach 1:
Impact calculations are performed in advance while the inactive flight plan is being generated, before the crew needs to review the information. This preliminary computation ensures that when the crew views the contextual preview, all impact analysis is already complete, eliminating any additional time requirement for decision-making.
Solution Approach 2:
The system replaces manual impact analysis with automated computational processes. Instead of requiring the crew to manually assess each update's impact, the system automatically calculates and presents impact information, significantly reducing the time required while improving decision quality.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods are provided for management of an active flight plan during operation of an aircraft. The systems include a flight management system, a communications system configured to receive flight mission data from external sources, a display device, and a controller. The controller is configured to, by a processor: receive the flight mission data that includes recommended updates to the active flight plan, generate an inactive flight plan including the active flight plan modified based on the recommended updates, access the inactive flight plan to determine an impact of the recommended updates on the active flight plan, render a graphical image on the display device that presents a contextual preview of the recommended updates and the impact thereof, and in response to acceptance of the recommended updates, modify the active flight plan based on the recommended updates or replace the active flight plan with the inactive flight plan.