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Controlled Time of Arrival (CTA): Trajectory Management by time-constraints |
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For arrivals, the most economic flight-profile, from 200NM out to the landing runway, can best be calculated by the Flight Management System [FMS] of the aircraft involved and then executed by its automatic flight control system (the autopilot and the auto-throttle). This generally results in an idle path descent via the final approach fix (FAF) to the runway threshold, with pre-calculated deceleration points. Most air transport aircraft today are equipped with FMS and could fly this type of profile.
During periods of moderate- to high-traffic demand, however, these trajectories and profiles can come more and more into conflict with each other. In these circumstances, ATC tends to impose more ‘control’ over any streams of arrival traffic and the opportunities for aircrew to fly their preferred trajectories, on the FMS, are limited.
Part of the solution to this problem, as envisaged by the concept of the Single European Sky (SES), is to de-conflict trajectories by using constraints. Knowing what constraints would apply to the flight, the FMS would then able to re-calculate the best possible profile taking any and all constraints into consideration.
One method for managing TMA arrivals by using constraints is the application of Controlled Time of Arrival [CTA]. This makes use of the Required Time of Arrival [RTA] functionality available on many aircraft today.
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The EUROCONTROL CTA / ATC integration studies [CASSIS 1 and CASSIS 2 projects] have explored the feasibility of this method by:
- Describing the characteristics of the conceptual context of CTA operations,
- Exploring the effects of the FMS RTA mode on aircraft's behavior and
- Last but not least: conducting more than 500 flight trials with revenue flights into Stockholm Arlanda.
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The CASSIS projects partners were:
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More details are available at our respective pages:
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Development of CTA applications |
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Validation of the RTA functionality |
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Flight Trials |
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The CASSIS projects started an in-depth investigation of CTA applications. An initial look at some CTA applications from the ground perspective has also been done in real time human–in–the–loop simulations. Many of the CTA-related issues discovered in CASSIS will now form the basis of more detailed research and development in the SESAR Queue Management 5.6.1 and other projects.
More details on SESAR are available at:
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Last validation: 24/06/2010
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