Patent ID: 8126599

Claim:
A method of calculating a continuous descent approach procedure for an aircraft, to minimize the environmental nuisance as noise and greenhouse gas emission created by the aircraft, a continuous descent approach being plateau-free, thrust of an engine of the aircraft being pegged at a low value, close to the engine “Idle Thurst,”the aircraft being at a given altitude and given distance from a landing runway, said method being implemented by a device of a flight management system and comprising the steps of: a first step of determining a standard approach procedure including a succession of finite segments and/or of semi-infinite half-lines, the finite segments being linked together by waypoints denoted “WPT(i)”, the semi-infinite half-lines being linked to the following semi-infinite half-lines by a point denoted “Proj(i)”, the projection onto the following leg, this procedure making it possible to determine a standard distance denoted Dist-reference; a second step of determining a minimum approach procedure to determine the minimum distance denoted Dist-ADC-min to attain the runway by using the maximum permitted descent angles; a third step of determining a maximum approach procedure to determine the maximum distance denoted Dist-ADC-max to attain the runway by using the minimum permitted descent angles; and a fourth step of comparing the distances Dist-ADC-min and Dist-ADC-max with the distance Dist-reference, the continuous descent approach procedure being possible if the distance Dist-reference is less than the maximum distance Dist-ADC-max and greater than the minimum distance Dist-ADC-min.