Open access to flight data from Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) has provided researchers with more insights for air traffic management than aircraft tracking alone. With large quantities of trajectory data collected from a wide range of different aircraft types, it is possible to extract accurate aircraft performance parameters. In this paper, a set of more than thirty parameters from seven distinct flight phases are extracted for common commercial aircraft types. It uses various data mining methods, as well as a maximum likelihood estimation approach to generate parametric models for these performance parameters. All parametric models combined can be used to describe a complete flight that includes takeoff, initial climb, climb, cruise, descent, final approach, and landing. Both analytical results and summaries are shown. When available, optimal parameters from these models are also compared with the Base of Aircraft Data and the Eurocontrol aircraft performance database. This research presents a comprehensive set of methods for extracting different aircraft performance parameters. It also provides the first set of open parametric performance data for common aircraft types. All model data are published as open data under a flexible open-source license.

The traffic density of small aerial vehicles operating within urban environments is expected to increase significantly in the near future. This urban environment is highly constrained due to being limited to the low-altitude airspace directly above the existing road network. Multiple studies have addressed factors influencing the capacity of urban airspace. These have used simulations of aircraft, yet the empirical nature of these simulations limits their use beyond the specific conditions that have been tested. Analytical models would not have this limitation, but they are only developed for general airspace, while the emergent patterns in constrained urban airspace are different than in general, unconstrained conditions. For instance, queuing and local congestion are patterns that are unique to the heavily-constrained environment. Therefore, in this paper, we derive an analytical model for air traffic in a confined airspace to find the influencing factors for its capacity. By means of a simulation of aerial vehicles, we verify the analytical model and show a relationship between the mean flow rate and mean density in a two-dimensional orthogonal grid network airspace. Results show that the entire airspace can become unstable when the maximum capacity of just one intersection is reached. Furthermore, the maximum airspace density is found to be unaffected by cruise speed. The results demonstrate how the derived analytical model provides an effective tool to predict the effect of several design parameters on the capacity of constrained urban airspace. Moreover, this model can form the basis for further extensions, including the altitude dimension and non-orthogonal or non-four-way intersections.

Air traffic simulations serve as common practice to evaluate different concepts and methods for air transportation studies. The aircraft performance model is a key element that supports these simulation-based studies. It is also an important component for simulation-independent studies, such as air traffic optimization and prediction studies. Commonly, contemporary studies have to rely on proprietary aircraft performance models that restrict the redistribution of the data and code. To promote openness and research comparability, an alternative open performance model would be beneficial for the air transportation research community. In this paper, we introduce an open aircraft performance model (OpenAP). It is an open-source model that is based on a number of our previous studies, which were focused on different components of the aircraft performance. The unique characteristic of OpenAP is that it was built upon open aircraft surveillance data and open literature models. The model is composed of four main components, including aircraft and engine properties, kinematic performances, dynamic performances, and utility libraries. Alongside the performance model, we are publishing an open-source toolkit to facilitate the use of this model. The main objective of this paper is to describe each main component, their connections, and how they can be used for simulation and research in practice. Finally, we analyzed the performance of OpenAP by comparing it with an existing performance model and sample flight data.

Modern aircraft can be equipped with a flight envelope protection system: automation which modifies pilot control inputs to ensure that the aircraft remains within the allowable limits. Overruling the pilot inputs may lead to mode confusion, even when visual or auditory feedback is provided to alert pilots. We advocate using active control devices to make the flight envelope protection system tangible to the pilot. This paper presents the main findings of an evaluation of three haptic feedback designs for flight envelope protection. The first concept used both force feedback and vibro-tactile alerts, producing promising, yet inconclusive, results. The second concept used asymmetric vibrations to give directional alerting cues, which did not result in improved performance on initial use, but which did yield improved learning rate for the task. The third system employed force feedback to physically guide the pilot away from flight envelope limits, which yielded safety improvements from the first use, but created dependence: pilot performance degraded immediately after the force feedback was removed. From this, we advise to use asymmetric vibrations during training for flight envelope excursions, to leverage active control interfaces for providing force feedback during operation, and reevaluate a combination of both to combine their advantages for single-pilot operations.

Previous research showed that haptic feedback, in the form of asymmetric vibrations, can be used to provide directional cues to the operator in a laboratory setting. Nevertheless, it is unclear how these vibrations should be designed for pilots controlling their aircraft using a side-stick. This paper aims to determine the magnitude and shape for which vibrations can still be perceived as directional cues, for one fixed frequency based on literature. The threshold magnitude of two forcing function shapes (triangular and saw tooth) was determined for both pulling and pushing cues in a just-noticeable-difference experiment. Participants were asked to report the direction at varying input magnitudes while exerting different offset force levels on the stick at different positions. Results confirmed all hypotheses: They indicated a lower perception threshold for the asymmetric saw tooth shaped vibration compared to a triangular shaped; higher offset force decreased the threshold in the opposite direction; and stick position had no effect on the obtained thresholds. Based on the experiment we advise to use saw tooth vibrations with an amplitude higher than 0.094 Nm.