The Flight Procedure Standards Branch (AFS-420) of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is responsible for developing the criteria to apply to procedures designed and implemented in the National Airspace System (NAS).
Analysis of Flight Technical Error on Straight, Final Approach Segments
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The Flight Procedure Standards Branch (AFS-420) of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is responsible for developing the criteria to apply to procedures designed and implemented in the National Airspace System (NAS). With the introduction of the Required Navigation Performance (RNP) capability of modern aircraft, development of criteria for the containment widths, or minimum amount of protected airspace needed, requires the accurate statistical analysis of the magnitude of position error for these RNP systems. The position error is represented by the Total System Error (TSE) which is a combination of the Flight Technical Error (FTE) and the Navigation System Error (NSE). The NSE is the error in position due to navigation such as Global Positioning System (GPS), Distance Measuring Equipment (DME)/DME, or Very High Frequency (VHF) Omnidirectional Range (VOR)/DME. FTE is the difference between the position estimated by the Flight Management System (FMS) and the desired aircraft position. The magnitude of these errors depend upon whether the aircraft is turning, changing speed, flying straight and level, the autopilot mode (e.g., engaged) and navigation mode (e.g., lateral and/or vertical). This paper focuses only on the statistical analysis of FTE for aircraft flying straight, final approach segments.