Methods for Demonstration of Flight Parameters Based on Takeoff along Engine-Out Standard Instrument Departures

To maintain flight safety, civil aircraft should develop certain departure procedures to comply with the certification regulations (FAR25, CS25, CCAR25, etc.) and operation regulations (FAR121, JAA-OPS, CCAR121, etc.).... [ view full abstract ]

To maintain flight safety, civil aircraft should develop certain departure procedures to comply with the certification regulations (FAR25, CS25, CCAR25, etc.) and operation regulations (FAR121, JAA-OPS, CCAR121, etc.). Increasing aircraft payload capability can be achieved by modifying the departure procedure out of airports surrounded by challenging terrain and thus may have the potential to transform the operation economy from financially unsustainable to commercially viable. An EOSID (Engine-Out Standard Instrument Departure) may be designed and used to improve aircraft MTOW (Maximum Take off Weight) by avoiding critical terrain or obstacles around a given airport while ensuring regulatory climb gradients are met. Climb out performance is affected by numerous factors such as weight, engine performance, obstacles, weather, etc. Designing and optimizing climb out flight paths in mountainous regions is particular challenging. To help engineers do this task better, Boeing has developed BCOP (Boeing Climb-Out Program) software to calculate parameters automatically instead of finding data from flight manual by hand, similar to the OFP (Operational Flight Plan) module of PEP (Performance Engineer Program) developed by Airbus.

In this paper, the aerodrome at Kelowna, British Columbia (ICAO: CYLW) is used for analysis since it is surrounded by mountainous terrain and has published SIDs for compliance with obstacle clearance requirements. The basic process loops for designing an EOSID are demonstrated, including calculations of MTOW, departure flight path, critiques to determine if it is necessary to design EOSID, and methods for finding new routes. Further, the metho¬¬¬¬ds for calculating flight path by Boeing software are given, including a basic flow chart, definition of vertical and horizontal profiles, and output of result parameters. BCOP provides an efficient way to design EOSID and output flight performance data in ASCII format for further analysis.

Demonstration of EOSID flight path is proposed using a commercially available flight simulator, X-Plane with a suitable aircraft model to fly the departure procedure and log flight data in order to provide comparison with the BCOP generated flight path. Procedure for capturing and exporting flight data from X-Plane in CSV format and conversion to flight path is presented. Both flight paths (BCOP, X-Plane) are animated using commercially available animation software to create 3D animations along with terrain elevation data and satellite images for pilots, air traffic controllers, and flight dispatchers in order to enhance the awareness of flight situations. The applicability of using X-Plane as a valid platform for EOSID flight path demonstration is assessed, since these simulators are much more economical than Full-Flight simulators, and provide design flexibility by easily checking the convenience of flight legs, and finding good routes in mountainous areas.