Patent ID: 7162335

Claim:
A system for interactively displaying and selecting flight paths airways for an aircraft using an on-screen marker, comprising: a flight management system for providing current aircraft location information and receiving selected navigational path information; one or more databases containing terrain map information and navigational path information; a display having a screen for interactively displaying terrain and navigational path information and the on-screen marker; a control device for positioning the marker on the display screen; a selection device for choosing an airway; a graphics processor coupled to the flight management system, to the one or more databases, to the display, to the control device and to the selection device, for presenting the terrain and navigational information obtained from the one or more databases on the display screen and presenting current aircraft location obtained from the flight management system on the display screen and presenting the marker on the display screen, the current aircraft location and the marker being located relative to the terrain and navigational information, wherein the marker location on the display screen is responsive to the control device; and when the marker location falls on a displayed airway segment, the graphics processor highlights the displayed airway segment and displays each airway with which the highlighted airway segment is associated, and when the selection device is actuated to select one of the airways with which the highlighted airway segment is associated while the airway segment is highlighted, the graphics processor sends information about the selected airway to the flight management system.