DECISION SUPPORT FOR THE GENERAL AVIATION PILOT John H. Painter John W. Crump Donald T. Ward Jeffrey A. Trang Knowledge Based Dick L. Y. zy Woo Kristopher A. Lee Systems, Inc. William P. Alcorn Paul A. Branham College Station, Texas Andrew C. Robbins Wallace E. Kelly, I11 of Karthik Krishnamurthy of Dept. of Electrical Eng. Texas A6M University College Station, Texas ABSTRACT zyxwvutsr Flight management systems for large, commercial aircraft are quite common, as are inexpensive, user-friendly personal computers. Can the two ideas be combined to yield affordable, flight management systems for smaller aircraft? This paper shows the answer to be “Yes!” Increasing air traffic control (ATC) requirements raises the workload of pilots. Required tasks dictate more “head-in-the- cockpit” computation, which can easily distract a pilot from safe airplane operation. Following eight years of research, we present an on-board computational system that increases pilot situational awareness, decreases diversion to routine computations, and anticipates upcoming needs. The key to anticipatory flight management is an expert system that uses knowledge of ATC procedures, aircraft operating procedures and limitations, and aircraft performance to infer current flight operating “mode” without direct pilot intervention or input. A flight mode interpreter (FMI) enables automatic display selection, pilot advice, and warning. This paper reports the development of an FMI- based flight management system, called General Aviation Pilot Advisory and Training System (GAPATS), that is being developed jointly by Texas A&M University and Knowledge Based Systems, Inc. Software development is carried out using a fiied-base engineering flight simulator. Pilot participation in all phases of development and evaluation is the norm. Flight tests have begun on an instrumented research light twin owned by the zyxwv 0-7803-4053-1/97/$10.00 zyxwvutsrq @ 1997 IEEE products A d services.” factor, a component numerator, responds technology. The ATC ease-of-use of Holmes’ “get” to new avionics 88 Ren-Jye Yu of Dept. of Aerospace Eng. Texas A6M University College Station, Texas Texas A&M University Flight Mechanics Laboratory. INTRODUCTION Background There is a compelling need for automation in the General Aviation (GA) cockpit. During the 1980s the U.S. all but ceased production of light, piston-engined aircraft due to an increasingly adverse market environment. Whereas 18,000 GA aircraft were produced in the U.S. in 1978, that number dwindled to 899 by 1992. Of two leading GA manufacturers, Piper took bankruptcy [l]. Only in the late 1990s are the factors coming into place to allow this industry to recover. NASA’s Dr. Bruce Holmes has defined a perceived-value ratio for GA, which he believes must be improved to resuscitate the market [2]. This ratio is “What you get” divided by “What you pay.” In the “get” numerator, the ease of use of the ATC system needed to be increased. In the “pay” denominator, the cost of product liability needed to be reduced. Product liability has been initially addressed in recent congressional Tort Reform legislation, and general aviation aircraft sales have been up for the past two years, encouraging the FAA to predict a growth in the active aircraft fleet of over 15,000 units between 1996 and 2008 [3]. But this rosy growth pattern is based on a number of assumptions, and the report warns, “...the actual rate of growth will depend on how successful the industry is in stimulating the development of new general aviation Authorized licensed use limited to: Texas A M University. Downloaded on February 16,2010 at 15:01:09 EST from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.