Flight Time Scheduling in Continuous Descent Operation for Traffic Control Performance

Abstract

The traffic control performance of an air traffic flow on a continuous descent operation (CDO) is discussed. On a CDO, aircraft are able to control the time to arrival the airport by changing its descent rate with maintaining the idle thrust. It is possible to optimize the punctuality by leading aircraft to fly on their scheduled time. In such traffic control strategy, the traffic control performance, such as separation control accuracy and total traffic flight time, are determined by the scheduled time. Through numerical traffic control simulations on the traffic control performance, it is clarified possible to minimize the total traffic flight time by selecting an appropriate scheduled time without losing the separation control accuracy. It is also clarified possible to estimate the total traffic flight time, and a practical approach to determine the scheduled flight time also presented.