Curved flight procedure construction with site-specific statistical meteorological data: A Swedish example

This paper presents a study of using site-specific statistical meteorological data in the construction of curved flight procedures to explore its potential in reducing the environmental impact of air traffic near the airports. In the study, the statistical meteorological data which covers a 10-year period of time, from 2009 to 2018, have been collected for the air space centred two major Swedish airports, Arlanda at Stockholm (ESSA) and Landvetter at Göteborg (ESGG). Two procedure design practices, one is an area navigation (RNAV) standard instrument departure (SID) procedure from runway 08 of Arlanda airport and another is a required navigation performance authorization required (RNP AR) approach procedure heading to the runway 03 at Landvetter airport, have been performed and analyzed. Applying the 95th percentile wind speed from statistical meteorological data, instead of the ICAO standardized tailwind component (TWC), offers varying benefits depending on the specific case. For the RNAV SID procedure from ESSA, the part of the designed departure path which is outside of the regulated noise dispersion area is significantly reduced. Whilst for the RNP AR approach procedure to ESGG, the smaller turning radius resulted from the lower TWC which is calculated from the local meteorological data makes it possible to avoid flying over an inhabited area. Besides the notable potential of noise impact reduction, flight distance shortening of 3.7 NM (RNAV SID ESSA case) and 1 NM (RNP AR ESGG case) compared to the same procedures designed on ICAO standard TWC have been observed. In general, the presented results are positive in supporting the use of local meteorological data in planning curved flight procedures during departures and approaches. A validation performed using an A320 full flight simulator has confirmed the operability of the ESGG RNP AR procedure from the design practice. In the full flight simulator, even with the 100th percentile wind condition from the collected statistical meteorological data, the designed RNP AR approach procedure can be operable considering RNP 0.3 corridor while a 30° bank angle is required for approximately 20 s during the turn. • Implementing statistical meteorological data in curved flight procedure design and demonstrating its benefits. • Conducting RNP AR design study using updated statistical meteorological data and latest design manuals. • Providing guidelines on selecting and applying suitable statistical data into procedure design. • Offering practical design cases which are designed by operators and validated by pilots in flight simulators. • Encouraging R&D in curved flight design using statistical meteorological data by demonstrating individual cases.