Looking for a math wiz!

Jose wrote:
*****
Do the controllers know (and have easily available, say, on the
terminal) the wind speed forecasts? Would they be sufficient to
greatly reduce the above scenario?
*****

Most center controllers have a graphical display of forecast winds
aloft that is interpolated to provide estimates for every 1000 foot
level. That is very useful. We also have the ability to estimate
winds based upon our observation of the radar tracks at the sector.
This is something that takes a while to not only learn, but to remember
to look for it in the first place.

Each source of information is useful to prevent poor controlling in the
same way the gear handle is useful to prevent gear up landings.
There's no guarantee we'll use either. :-)


Chad Speer
PP-ASEL, IA
ATCS, Kansas City ARTCC

Kev wrote:
*****
You have data from a training session. It has a recording of many
aircraft movements that you can play back. Perhaps you add one new
and controllable craft to the mix (AAL460 above?) and that's the one
that gets vectored by the trainee, to see what kind of trouble he can
get in/out of. Since all the other aircraft had been affected by wind,
the controllable plane needs the same flight input. Is this a good
description?

If so, I'm thinking that the wind within the 2000' block you talked
about, is a single fixed value for the entire training session. Would
that be fair to say? If that is true, then you don't need to
calculate the wind except once at the beginning. Can this be stored
for later use each time?
*****

Hey, Kev. We're not going to be adding tracks, we'll just review what
was done with the existing aircraft. The real kicker is that the
operator can effectively take control an aircraft and "fly" it
according to an alternate set of instructions the controller could have
given the pilot. We can then watch the original track of the aircraft
alongside the simulated track and see how the situation would have
developed if the controller had made a different choice.

The playback has no idea what the winds are. If we don't account for
the winds, the simulated track for an aircraft would behave as though
the wind was calm, which is highly unrealistic. Since this is a short
time frame and a relatively small chunk of airspace, a single
calculation for winds would be fine.


Chad Speer
PP-ASEL, IA
ATCS, Kansas City ARTCC

Kev schrieb:

I think you were visualizing a triangle, and thought of the two obvious
solutions. But there are a lot more.

Frankly, I didn't contemplate very much and just posted the obvious.

Stefan

Jose schrieb:

Yanno, each airplane that has GPS could transmit its data to Center,
which could then sort it out. This is possibly much more useful than
the Mode S ID

Mode S (the flavor used in heavy metal) does exactly that and a lot more.

Stefan

Mode S (the flavor used in heavy metal) does exactly that and a lot more.

Thanks. I thought mode S (the flavor used on little airplanes)
basically just transmitted its unique ID.

Jose
--
"There are 3 secrets to the perfect landing. Unfortunately, nobody knows
what they are." - (mike).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Jose schrieb:

Mode S (the flavor used in heavy metal) does exactly that and a lot more.

Thanks. I thought mode S (the flavor used on little airplanes)
basically just transmitted its unique ID.

You thought correctly. But the OP specifically asked about big planes.

Stefan

You thought correctly. But the OP specifically asked about big planes.

Missed that. It was a while ago, but I don't think I ever realized that.

Jose
--
"There are 3 secrets to the perfect landing. Unfortunately, nobody knows
what they are." - (mike).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Chad Speer wrote:
I didn't specify in my original post because I didn't expect the
question to be raised, but we will be using aircraft within a 2000
foot window. At the higher altitudes, that rarely involves a
difference of more than a few degrees and maybe six knots of wind.

Sounds reasonable. So far I've only played below 14,000 feet AGL (and
most often under 11,000 feet AGL), and in Oklahoma and Texas, that means
the winds can sometimes shift 90 degrees in a thousand feet.

If the FAA really gets involved, this will be a useless program.
Never fails.

I couldn't possibly comment. [0]

I really like the open discussion of Usenet and would love to make
this solution an eternal part of rec.aviation. If that doesn't
happen, I'll bribe some grad students...

Even if you have to get "outside" help, that doesn't mean you can't
share the solution with the group. I figure you (or somebody) will
probably end up writing a short "how this training software works"
document, either for other controllers that want to use it for training,
or to show your boss what you've been fooling around with all this time.
You could probably post that document here, or put it on the web and
provide a link.

Matt Roberds

[0] You ever hear of a little company in Kansas City called Wilcox
Electric? How about a little program called WAAS?

Chad Speer wrote:
Hey, Kev. We're not going to be adding tracks, we'll just review what
was done with the existing aircraft. The real kicker is that the
operator can effectively take control an aircraft and "fly" it [...]

The playback has no idea what the winds are. If we don't account for
the winds, the simulated track for an aircraft would behave as though
the wind was calm, which is highly unrealistic. Since this is a short
time frame and a relatively small chunk of airspace, a single
calculation for winds would be fine.

Okay then. This is like my earliest days of programming back with 4K
memory and a slow cpu :-) Sometimes the simplest ways are best.

I think someone else noted that since you know the filed TAS and the
radar-derived GS, then the Headwind values will be super easy to
derive. (TAS-GS)

So what I would do is try to find aircraft facing the four or eight
main compass directions. Calculate and store the head or tail wind for
each base direction in a lookup array. Extrapolate if wished for more
compass points. You can do this once at the beginning, or do it at
various intervals if more aircraft will turn and give finer data.

Now just apply that simple wind info (by array lookup of the rough
course) to the TAS of the plane you are taking control of. It should
be quite sufficient since you really just need the basic wind effect on
its TAS as it turns... the crosswinds and airplane headings don't
matter in your case.

Regards, Kev

Kev wrote:
*****
I think someone else noted that since you know the filed TAS and the
radar-derived GS, then the Headwind values will be super easy to
derive. (TAS-GS)
*****

This is interesting. I hadn't considered breaking them up into
headwind and crosswind components. I see the simplicity in that, but
I'll have to run that through the brain a few times to see how it fits.
I certainly can't dismiss it offhand!


Chad Speer
PP-ASEL, IA
ATCS, Kansas City ARTCC