Patent ID: 8025255

Claim:
A method of piloting an aircraft to enable the aircraft to pick up and follow a vertical profile of a flight plan, whereby a first piloting mode is used enabling the aircraft to automatically pick up and automatically follow said vertical profile, and a second piloting mode is used enabling the crew of the aircraft to control the picking-up of said vertical profile, the method comprising: A/ in a first phase: a) piloting the aircraft according to said second piloting mode enabling the crew of the aircraft to control the picking-up of said vertical profile; b) determining automatically in real time an engagement zone which is adjacent, by a predetermined value, to an engagement limit zone on the side from which the aircraft arrives at the vertical profile, said engagement limit zone being calculated in real time according to the vertical speed of the aircraft and an angle between a pick-up path and the vertical profile; c) determining automatically the current position of the aircraft; and d) automatically comparing this current position to said engagement zone; and B/ automatically initiating a second phase immediately after said current position of the aircraft is located in said engagement zone, in which the aircraft is piloted according to said first piloting mode which enables the aircraft to automatically pick up and automatically follow said vertical profile, wherein: within the engagement limit zone, the vertical profile cannot be picked up without overshooting it, the engagement limit zone is defined about a reference path and surrounds the vertical profile, and the vertical distance between the upper boundary of the engagement zone and the upper boundary of the engagement limit zone corresponds to a predetermined value.