4D FMS for Increasing Efficiency of TMA Operations

In order to meet the anticipated future demand for air travel, DLR's Institute of Flight Guidance is investigating distributed air-ground traffic management (DAG-TM) for arrivals in the extended TMA. Based on the exchange of information between aircraft and ATC via data link, a trajectory based traffic management can take into account user preferred trajectories as well as make use of highly accurate prediction of aircraft movements. This contribution focuses on the airborne part - in particular on the 4D FMS functions for planning and flying various types of CDA approaches. The planning functions to compute approach profiles ranging from 2 degree (clean configuration) up to steep slopes (more than 5 degree) with early configuration and glide path intersection from above are presented. Furthermore, functions to compensate deviations due to inaccurately forecasted wind are described. These functions ensure flying the predicted flight path. The new CDA functionalities have been implemented in DLR's 4D capable advanced flight management system (AFMS) and intensively tested during various flight trials in the A330 full flight simulator in Berlin and with DLR's test aircraft ATTAS, a VFW 614 twin engine jet transport aircraft modified for research purposes. The results of these trials are presented and discussed