Aircraft Flight Time Research Articles

Investigation of the technology of the cooperation between the air traffic control and the ornithological service

This article analyzes the technology of cooperation between the air traffic control (ATC) and the ornithological service (OS). As part of the analysis, the procedures of preventive measures for air traffic controllers (ATC) and OS specialists to avert bird strikes were considered. The phases of aircraft (AC) taxiing to a runway (RW) and takeoff were considered. For individual flights, delays were determined. Flow charts and network technological charts of the ATC-OS cooperation were built. The direct air traffic management within the framework of this article is carried out by air traffic controllers of the control units «Ground» and «Tower». The flight director (FD), ground personnel and the OS specialist are also involved in the work. The technology of the ATC-OS cooperation is evaluated in terms of efficiency and flight safety. As an indicator of efficiency in this study, a value equal to the ratio of the expected time to the real time of AC departure was adopted. The time of movement, denoted in the flight plan, varies depending on an aerodrome, RW, TW, AC type and many other factors. Therefore, to determine the expected time of AC flight support, statistical data, indicating the AC flight time without the impact of external factors, were used. The study of the technology for the ATC-OS cooperation was carried out for 12 months. The research array was obtained from the daily flight plans of Zhukovsky airport – flight number, AC type, takeoff-landing time, various aircraft ground maneuvers at an airfield.

Data‐driven flight time prediction for arrival aircraft within the terminal area

Predicting the arrival aircraft's flight time plays a critical role in effectively optimizing and scheduling spatial-temporal resources in the terminal airspace. This paper focuses on a data-driven method for predicting the arrival flight time. First, based on the existing research, a feature set is constructed from four aspects: initial state, arrival pressure, sequencing pressure, and wind information, which are believed to affect arrival flight time significantly. Second, eight widely used models are developed to predict flight time, including linear regression models, nonlinear regression models, and tree-based ensemble models. Furthermore, the stacking technique is adopted to improve the prediction performance. Finally, take Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport as a study case to verify the proposed method's effectiveness. The results indicate that the arrival pressure (describing the arrival traffic demand) and the sequencing pressure (sketching the arrival traffic distribution) could effectively improve the prediction accuracy. The mean absolute percentage error of the predicted flight time via ATAGA and IGONO can be increased by 1%. Besides, the proposed method of extracting wind data could also improve the prediction performance. The mean absolute error of the predicted flight time via GYA can be reduced by 4.85 s.

Assessment of the Method of Merging Landing Aircraft Streams in the Context of Fuel Consumption in the Airspace

The most important directions in the field of sustainable development of air transport concern increasing the capacity of airports and improving the global civil aviation system, improving air traffic safety, and developing procedures to optimize the operation of the aviation system. An important area is environmental protection and measures to minimize the negative impact of civil aviation activities on the environment. Air traffic and the operation of airports generate adverse environmental effects, including greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, and noise emissions. Due to the high intensity of aircraft maneuvers, the authors analyzed aircraft traffic in the area approaching the airport. It is essential to correctly line up for aircraft reporting from different entry points to the approach area to avoid waiting for landing. Misalignment of landing aircraft negatively impacts airport capacity, increases fuel consumption through more prolonged waiting times in space, and directly impacts air pollution. There are different ways to organize landing aircraft flows and other ways to merge these flows. The article aims to assess the method of combining the streams of landing aircraft and estimate the impact of such an organization on the increased fuel consumption of aircraft and thus on air pollution. The authors proposed a measure for assessing the quality of the landing queue, which was defined as the increase in flight time of aircraft in the approach area in relation to the nominal time, which was adopted as minimization. In order to obtain the results of research works, a model using a Petri net was developed, allowing for flexible mapping of concurrent processes and their effect analysis. Various methods of combining the streams of landing aircraft have been adopted: three-stage, two-stage, and single-stage. Then, simulation experiments were carried out, allowing the determination of whether the method of combining the streams of landing planes has an impact on the quality of the landing queue measured with the proposed index. The obtained results of the assessment can be used to estimate the increased fuel consumption of the aircraft.

Two-Stage Stochastic Programming Based on Particle Swarm Optimization for Aircraft Sequencing and Scheduling

A two-stage stochastic programming algorithm based on particle swarm optimization is proposed for an optimal and robust design in the aircraft sequencing and scheduling problem. The first and second stage decision problems are defined as aircraft sequencing and scheduling, respectively, and the uncertainties that arise from the aircraft flight time between two successive fixes are considered. Particle swarm optimization is utilized for a randomized search to make the first stage decision under incomplete information about uncertain parameters. In addition, the random key representation is adopted to apply particle swarm optimization to a discrete aircraft sequencing problem. Then, the second stage decision is made using mixed integer linear programming after the realization of the uncertain parameters. The performance of the proposed algorithm is verified by numerical simulations.

Southwest Airlines Low-Cost Strategy of the United States and the Enlightenment to China

To analyze the strategic of the US-based Southwest Airlines low-cost short-haul routes to application in China. Southwest Airlines strategies include: increasing scale; to extend the aircraft's flight time to short-haul routes based; second-tier major airport operators and reducing staff time off; only the type of aircraft using the unique and only providing basic services; to adhere to the centralized procurement and cost control of the aircraft in terms of transition; simplify processes and low fares. Low-cost airlines of Chinese face some difficulties, for example, the macro-economic environment for the development environment; in the economic environment in the aviation industry challenger - high-speed rail outstanding performance and pilot training; the industry itself features, and so on. In specific applications, the need for a specific treatment is based on low-cost airline in the external environment.

Age and airline accidents.

The issuance of a commercial pilot's license is contingent upon the fulfillment of stated minimum flight time. These requirements imply that total flight time and aircraft flight time can be equated with safety. For this reason, aircraft accidents involving licensed, professional pilots become difficult to explain. This study examined the relationship of pilot experience to accidents by comparing pilots' age and experience in 188 accidents involving corporate/executive pilots. The more severe accidents were expected to involve younger, less experienced pilots. The data in this study, however, refute this expectation. The age, aircraft time, or total time difference between groups was not significant. More research, both in the field and under controlled conditions, may bring in the psychological concept of cognitive dissonance.