Simulation of Time-on-Procedure (ToP) for evaluating airline procedures

Airline Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) define the sequence of flight crew actions to handle the set of mission situations that can emerge in the execution of a commercial airline flight. Each SOP must be completed within an Allowable Operational Time Window (AOTW) to avoid a hazardous outcome. For dynamic plants (e.g. airliner) the Time on Procedure (ToP) and the AOTW are distributions that vary with the interactions between environment, plant, and operator actions. Making sure that new, or modified procedures, can be completed in a timely manner (i.e. ToP <; AOTW) is a critical step in verification of SOPs. This paper describes a method to simulate the ToP distributions for SOPs based on analysis of aircraft flight data. The Monte Carlo (MC) simulation for ToP has a three-step process described as (1) generate the AOTW, (2) identify AOTW interval, (3) generate ToP. A case study analysis of the Take-off procedure is demonstrated resulting in a simulated ToP within 5% of the actual. The implications of these results for testing procedure design and limitations of this method are discussed.