Open Loop Aircraft Take-off Mass Estimation: An Optimal Trajectory Approach

The mass of an aircraft is crucial for performance-related studies, such as predicting flight trajectories and analyzing flight emissions. In these studies, the flight trajectories are often reconstructed using a point-mass aircraft performance model combined with flight profiles from surveillance data and take-off mass information. However, airlines do not usually disclose take-off mass information, considering its sensitive nature. Thus, aircraft masses often need to be assumed or estimated. This paper presents a simple and computationally effective approach for estimating take-off mass using only open data and models. We explore the strong correlation between take-off mass, flight distance, cruise altitude, and partially, the airspeed during the cruise. The main idea is to generate fuel-optimal trajectories with known masses and distances, and then compare them with actual flight data. The optimal trajectories are generated using the open aircraft performance and optimization library. By assuming that actual flights follow quasi-fuel-optimal trajectories, the take-off mass of a flight can be estimated based on simple regression models trained on the optimal trajectory dataset. This open-loop take-off mass estimation approach requires no proprietary information from aircraft manufacturers or airlines. We verified the model with an anonymized dataset containing actual A320 flights with known take-off mass. Our two- and three-feature multi-linear models yield mean absolute percentage errors of 5.95 % and 4.89 %, respectively. This study is another step forward in open science and a contribution to the aircraft trajectory studies.