Abstract
This air traffic management research study analysed the performance of constant time based airborne spacing under different operational conditions using fast time simulation. The effects of mixed aircraft types and wind conditions on the ability of an aircraft to maintain a constant time delay along-track spacing behind a descending lead aircraft were investigated. An exact constant time delay (60 s) spacing criterion based on lead aircraft position history was used to compare the spacing performance of all combinations of heavy and light aircraft for different wind conditions. Results show for both constant and turbulent winds that cross-track winds could have just as detrimental an effect on along- track time based spacing performance as along-track winds. Turbulent winds severely degraded time based spacing stability particularly in cross and head wind conditions. Tail winds were the least disturbing for time based spacing in both constant and turbulent cases. A heavy aircraft following a light tended to produce the maximum spacing errors. The other three combinations of aircraft type resulted in similar maximum spacing error behaviour.
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Published on 01/01/2003
Volume 2003, 2003
DOI: 10.2514/6.2003-5404
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA license
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