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At least 217 records · Page 12

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NASA NTRS2014

Autonomous Flight Rules Concept: User Implementation Costs and Strategies

The costs to implement Autonomous Flight Rules (AFR) were examined for estimates in acquisition, installation, training and operations. The user categories were airlines, fractional operators, general aviation and unmanned aircraft systems. Transition strategies to minimize costs while maximizing operational benefits were also analyzed. The primary cost category was found to be the avionics acquisition. Cost ranges for AFR equipment were given to reflect the uncertainty of the certification level for the equipment and the extent of existing compatible avionics in the aircraft to be modified.

Cotton, William B.↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Demonstration of Airline-Based Airborne Reroute Operations using Trajectory Option Sets and Third-Party Tools

A concept that enables advanced airborne reroute operations is proposed, built on NextGen capabilities called Airborne Reroute (ABRR) and Trajectory Option Set (TOS). The concept introduces new third-party services / tools for the airline dispatchers to generate airline-preferred trajectories in response to convective weather events. The airborne TOS routes are sent to the traffic flow managers, who can evaluate the feasibility of the trajectory options with the help of their own third-party services / tools which have been built for this concept. A virtual demonstration study was conducted to elicit feedback from air traffic and airline subject-matter-experts. The feedback was generally positive, both in the benefits of the concept and the feasibility / need for the new tools to enable the concept but their feedback was mixed on the feasibility of the new tools to be third-party services instead of being integrated into their core tools. Nevertheless, this concept explores and demonstrates an evolutionary pathway toward a service-oriented future that shifts the responsibilities and the capabilities of air traffic operations from the air traffic service providers to the airline industry and third-party vendors.

airborne reroutes↗

NASA NTRS2015

Dynamic Weather Routes: Two Years of Operational Testing at American Airlines

The Dynamic Weather Routes (DWR) tool continuously analyzes active flights in en-route airspace and finds simple route corrections to achieve more time- and fuel-efficient routes around convective weather. A strong partnership between NASA, American Airlines (AA), and the Federal Aviation Administration has enabled testing of DWR in real-world air traffic operations. NASA and AA have been conducting a trial of DWR at AA’s Integrated Operations Center in Fort Worth, Texas since July 2012. This paper describes test results based on AA’s use of DWR for their flights in and around Fort Worth Center (ZFW). Results indicate an actual savings of 3,290 flying minutes for 526 AA revenue flights from January 2013 through September 2014. Of these, 48 flights each indicate a savings of 15 minutes or more. Potential savings for all flights in ZFW airspace, corrected for savings flights achieve today through normal pilot requests and controller clearances, is about 100,000 flying minutes for 15,000 flights in 2013. Results indicate that AA flights with DWR in use realize about 20 percent more savings than non-AA flights. A weather forecast analysis examines the extent to which DWR routes rated acceptable by AA users remain clear of downstream weather. A sector congestion analysis indicates congestion could be reduced 19-38 percent if all flights fly DWR routes rather than nominal weather-avoidance routes.

Trajectory Automation↗

NASA NTRS1991

Flight Planning

Seagull Technology, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, produced a computer program under a Langley Research Center Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant called STAFPLAN (Seagull Technology Advanced Flight Plan) that plans optimal trajectory routes for small to medium sized airlines to minimize direct operating costs while complying with various airline operating constraints. STAFPLAN incorporates four input databases, weather, route data, aircraft performance, and flight-specific information (times, payload, crew, fuel cost) to provide the correct amount of fuel optimal cruise altitude, climb and descent points, optimal cruise speed, and flight path.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS1998

The Future of Air Traffic Management

A system for the control of terminal area traffic to improve productivity, referred to as the Center-TRACON Automation System (CTAS), is being developed at NASA's Ames Research Center under a joint program with the FAA. CTAS consists of a set of integrated tools that provide computer-generated advisories for en-route and terminal area controllers. The premise behind the design of CTAS has been that successful planning of traffic requires accurate trajectory prediction. Data bases consisting of representative aircraft performance models, airline preferred operational procedures and a three dimensional wind model support the trajectory prediction. The research effort has been the design of a set of automation tools that make use of this trajectory prediction capability to assist controllers in overall management of traffic. The first tool, the Traffic Management Advisor (TMA), provides the overall flow management between the en route and terminal areas. A second tool, the Final Approach Spacing Tool (FAST) provides terminal area controllers with sequence and runway advisories to allow optimal use of the runways. The TMA and FAST are now being used in daily operations at Dallas/Ft. Worth airport. Additional activities include the development of several other tools. These include: 1) the En Route Descent Advisor that assist the en route controller in issuing conflict free descents and ascents; 2) the extension of FAST to include speed and heading advisories and the Expedite Departure Path (EDP) that assists the terminal controller in management of departures; and 3) the Collaborative Arrival Planner (CAP) that will assist the airlines in operational decision making. The purpose of this presentation is to review the CTAS concept and to present the results of recent field tests. The paper will first discuss the overall concept and then discuss the status of the individual tools.

Denery, Dallas G.↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Why Learning From All Operations Is Imperative

Learning from All Operations – Panel Discussion Introduction: Tzvetomir Blajev, Flight Safety Foundation Why Learning from All Operations is Imperative: Jon Holbrook, NASA Implemented Approaches to Learning from All Operations American Airlines Japan Airlines Southwest Airlines Delta Air Lines Why Learning from All Operations is Imperative (Summary): Immanuel Barshi, NASA

Jon Holbrook↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

TPSAS-NF1676L-15334-DND

Objective - develop a near-term application of ADS-B that delivers immediate airline benefits through the introduction of more efficient oceanic operations - Develop - Conduct the research, simulations, safety analyses and flight tests required that lead to an implementation of a new oceanic capability - Near-Term Application of ADS-B - ADS-B is a fundamental component of NextGen; near-term aspect helps get ADS-B out of the lab and into the real world - Immediate Airline Operational benefits - Airline operators benefit from their equipage investment; provides an incentive for operators to voluntarily equip with transformational technologies - More Efficient Operations - Applications that enable aircraft to fly at optimal altitudes, tracks and speeds - Oceanic - Air traffic environment that is open to new technologies and procedures - Provide tangible benefits by solving a significant problem (aircraft flying at inefficient altitudes) using relatively low cost technology

Kenneth M Jones↗

NASA NTRS2016

Flight Awareness Collaboration Tool Development

NASA is developing the Flight Awareness Collaboration Tool (FACT) to support airline and airport operations during winter storms. The goal is to reduce flight delays and cancellations due to winter weather. FACT concentrates relevant information from the Internet and FAA databases on one screen for easy access. It provides collaboration tools for those managing the winter weather event including the airline operations center, airport authority (runway treatment), the Federal Aviation Administration air traffic control tower, and de-icing operators. Prediction tools are being added to improve FACT capabilities including one that anticipates changes in airport departure rates from weather forecasts. We have formed two user teams from affected airports to guide the design and evaluate the web-based prototype. Future work includes adding more automated capabilities and conducting a simulation to evaluate FACT in a realistic environment.

Mogford, Richard↗

NASA NTRS2019

Flight Awareness Collaboration Tool

NASA is developing the Flight Awareness Collaboration Tool (FACT) to support airline and airport operations during winter storms. The goal is to reduce flight delays and cancellations due to winter weather. FACT concentrates relevant information from the Internet and FAA databases on one screen for easy access. It provides collaboration tools for those managing the winter weather event including the airline operations center, airport authority (runway treatment), the Federal Aviation Administration air traffic control tower, and de-icing operators. Prediction tools are being added to improve FACT capabilities including one that anticipates changes in airport departure rates from weather forecasts. Future work includes adding more automated capabilities and collaborating with industry.

Mogford, Richard H.↗

NASA NTRS2019

Flight Awareness Collaboration Tool Development

Mogford, Richard↗

NASA NTRS2004

Journal of Air Transportation, Volume 9, No. 1

The articles in this issue include: 1) Are Four Year Universities Better than Two-Year Colleges at Preparing Students to Pass the FAA Aircraft Mechanic Certification Written Examinations? 2) Assessing Perceived Risk of Consumers in Internet Airline Reservations Services; 3) Perceptions of Communication Training Among Collegiate Flight Educators; 4) Ethics Education in University Aviation Management Programs in the U.S.: Part Three - Qualitative Analysis and Recommendations; 5) Airline Flight Operations Internships Perspectives; 6) Applying Data Mining Techniques to Forecast Number of Airline Passengers in Saudi Arabia (Domestic and International Travels).

Bowen, Brent D.↗

NASA NTRS2011

System Oriented Runway Management: A Research Update

The runway configuration used by an airport has significant implications with respect to its capacity and ability to effectively manage surface and airborne traffic. Aircraft operators rely on runway configuration information because it can significantly affect an airline's operations and planning of their resources. Current practices in runway management are limited by a relatively short time horizon for reliable weather information and little assistance from automation. Wind velocity is the primary consideration when selecting a runway configuration; however when winds are below a defined threshold, discretion may be used to determine the configuration. Other considerations relevant to runway configuration selection include airport operator constraints, weather conditions (other than winds) traffic demand, user preferences, surface congestion, and navigational system outages. The future offers an increasingly complex landscape for the runway management process. Concepts and technologies that hold the potential for capacity and efficiency increases for both operations on the airport surface and in terminal and enroute airspace are currently under investigation. Complementary advances in runway management are required if capacity and efficiency increases in those areas are to be realized. The System Oriented Runway Management (SORM) concept has been developed to address this critical part of the traffic flow process. The SORM concept was developed to address all aspects of runway management for airports of varying sizes and to accommodate a myriad of traffic mixes. SORM, to date, addresses the single airport environment; however, the longer term vision is to incorporate capabilities for multiple airport (Metroplex) operations as well as to accommodate advances in capabilities resulting from ongoing research. This paper provides an update of research supporting the SORM concept including the following: a concept of overview, results of a TRCM simulation, single airport and Metroplex modeling effort and a benefits assessment.

Lohr, Gary W.↗

NASA NTRS2017

Evolution of a Simulation Testbed into an Operational Tool

This paper describes the evolution over a 20-year period of the Future ATM (Air Traffic Management) Concepts Evaluation Tool (FACET) from a National Airspace System (NAS) based simulation testbed into an operational tool. FACET was developed as a testbed for assessing futuristic ATM concepts, e.g., automated conflict detection and resolution. NAS Constraint Evaluation and Notification Tool (NASCENT) is an application, within FACET, for alerting airspace users of inefficiencies in flight operations and advising time- and fuel-saving reroutes.It is currently in use at American Airlines Integrated Operations Center in Fort Worth, TX. The concepts assessed,research conducted, and the operational capability developed, along with the NASA support and achievements are presented in this paper.

Sheth, Kapil↗

NASA NTRS1982

Comparative analysis of operational forecasts versus actual weather conditions in airline flight planning: Summary report

The impact of more timely and accurate weather data on airline flight planning with the emphasis on fuel savings is studied. This summary report discusses the results of each of the four major tasks of the study. Task 1 compared airline flight plans based on operational forecasts to plans based on the verifying analyses and found that average fuel savings of 1.2 to 2.5 percent are possible with improved forecasts. Task 2 consisted of similar comparisons but used a model developed for the FAA by SRI International that simulated the impact of ATc diversions on the flight plans. While parts of Task 2 confirm the Task I findings, inconsistency with other data and the known impact of ATC suggests that other Task 2 findings are the result of errors in the model. Task 3 compares segment weather data from operational flight plans with the weather actually observed by the aircraft and finds the average error could result in fuel burn penalties (or savings) of up to 3.6 percent for the average 8747 flight. In Task 4 an in-depth analysis of the weather forecast for the 33 days included in the study finds that significant errors exist on 15 days. Wind speeds in the area of maximum winds are underestimated by 20 to 50 kts., a finding confirmed in the other three tasks.

Keitz, J. F.↗

NASA NTRS1973

Atmospheric constituent measurements using commercial 747 airliners

NASA is implementing a Global Atmospheric Monitoring Program to measure the temporal and spatial distribution of particulate and gaseous constituents related to aircraft engine emissions in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (6 to 12 Km). Several 747 aircraft operated by different airlines flying routes selected for maximum world coverage will be instrumented. An instrumentation system is being assembled and tested and is scheduled for operation in airline service in late 1974. Specialized instrumentation and an electronic control unit are required for automatic unattended operation on commercial airliners. An ambient air sampling system was developed to provide undisturbed outside air to the instruments in the pressurized aircraft cabin.

Perkins, P. J.↗

NASA NTRS2019

The Relationship between Workload, Performance and Fatigue in a Short-Haul Airline

Short-haul flights are associated with irregular work schedules and increased workload, due to frequent takeoffs and landings. We examined the relationship between pilot workload, performance and subjective fatigue during normal short-haul operations. Ninety airline pilots (8 female), mean age 33 (Â±8 years) completed a NASA-Task Load Index (NASA-TLX), a Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT; a reaction time test sensitive to sleep loss) and a Samn-Perelli (SP) fatigue scale, over a period of 20 duty days at top-of-descent on 2762 short-haul flights. The duty days included either 2 or 4 flights per day starting at different times as scheduled during normal operations. Workload was measured using the six NASA-TLX scales: mental demand, physical demand, temporal demand, effort, performance and frustration. Lapses (reaction times [RT] > 500ms) were calculated for the PVT. Spearman correlations were calculated to identify relationships between the NASA-TLX, PVT lapses, and SP. The six scales of NASA-TLX were positively correlated with the PVT lapses (p < 0.01) showing an increase in workload when lapses increased. There was a positive correlation between subjective fatigue as measured by the SP fatigue scale and each of the six scales of NASA-TLX (p < 0.001) suggesting that pilots reported higher workload when perceived levels of fatigue were higher. Of the six workload scales, mental demand and performance were rated the highest (mental: M = 40.99, SD = 20.32; performance: M = 41.61, SD = 20.71) and effort was rated the lowest (M = 15.59, SD = 8.98). Preliminary analyses suggest that high workload is associated with poorer PVT performance and increased self-reported fatigue in this population of short-haul pilots. Future studies should explore how other workload factors (i.e. flight hours, time of day) influence self-reported and objective fatigue measures.

TLX↗

NASA NTRS1982

An Operational evaluation of head up displays for civil transport operations. NASA/FAA phase 3 report

The advantages and disadvantages of head-up displays (HUDs) in commercial jet transport approach and landing operations was evaluated. Ten airline captains currently qualified in the B-727 aircraft flew a series of instrument landing system (ILS) and nonprecision approaches in a motion base simulator using both a flight director HUD concept and a flightpath HUD concept as well as conventional head-down instruments under a variety of environmental and operational conditions to assess: (1) the potential benefits of these HUDs in airline operations; (2) problems which might be associated with their use; and (3) flight crew training requirements and flight crew operating procedures suitable for use with the HUDs. Results are presented in terms of objective simulator based performance measures, subject pilot opinion and rating data, and observer data.

Lauber, J. K.↗

NASA NTRS2019

Cyber Physical Security (CPS) Extension to Air Traffic Management (ATM) Testbed

The Air Traffic Management (ATM) Testbed is being developed at NASA to enable benefit, impact, safety and cost assessments for accelerating the deployment of Concept and Technologies (C&T) in the National Airspace System (NAS). Today, C&T introduction into the NAS takes decades. The primary reason for this is an inability to assess the operational impact of the interaction between the proposed C&T and operationally deployed systems (Realistic Technologies) in terms of NAS-wide safety, traffic flow efficiency, roles and workload of controllers and traffic managers, and impact on airline fleet operations. Transition of C&T to operations requires mathematical modeling and simulation, Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) testing and shadow-mode evaluation driven by operational data. Whereas interaction with the operational system during testing and stages of deployment is not permissible due to safety concerns, it is certainly possible to create a simulation environment that closely mimics the NAS using the same operational systems/hardware for enabling such assessments. This presentation focuses on a proposed Cyber Physical Security extension to the ATM Testbed for creating a modeling and simulation architecture to study how well the Air Traffic Management system will perform and analyze effectiveness of mitigating security measures against particular cyber-attack scenarios.

Datta, Koushik↗