Arrival-Time Controllability of Tailored Arrival Subjected to Flight-Path Constraints

Abstract

Recently, the continuous descent approach has been strongly focused because it can drastically reduce noise emission and fuel consumption during approach. The tailored arrival is proposed to facilitate the continuous descent approach at congested terminal airspace. In a tailored arrival operation, each arriving aircraft is provided with a specifically designed arrival path to fly on a continuous descent approach path without any conflict with other aircraft. In this paper, the arrival-time controllability of the tailored arrival paths determined by the top-of-descent and waypoint positions are discussed. A tailored arrival path is designed using the least number of track-to-fix and radius-to-fix legs neglecting the engine thrust. Two types of tailored arrival path are numerically investigated; one is determined by adjusting the waypoint positions with the fixed top of descent, and the other is determined by top-of-descent position with the fixed waypoints. They are numerically analyzed so as to satisfy a set of appropriate boundary conditions both at the top of descent and landing, and the behavior of the arrival-time difference from the standard continuous descent approach path is explored using a representative set of inputs. The arrival-time controllability is defined as the differences between the fastest and the slowest arrival time. Through several series of arrival-time analyses, it is found that the tailored arrival paths determined by changing the waypoint positions can achieve the larger arrival-time controllability compared with those determined by changing the top-of-descent position. It is also suggested that it is possible to compose an arrival path with the maximum arrival-time controllability without any additional fuel consumption.