Patent ID: 7363156

Claim:
A method for assisting in the piloting of an aircraft, a method whereby there is displayed, on at least one display screen of said aircraft, a set of information that illustrates a vertical plane and that comprises: a system of axes (SA), of which a Y axis is graduated altitude-wise, and an X axis is graduated distance-wise from the position of the aircraft; a characteristic symbol representing the aircraft, which is positioned on said Y axis, in a position representative of the altitude of said aircraft, and where appropriate, an auxiliary characteristic symbol that represents an aircraft in the vicinity and that is positioned on said system of axes at a position representative of its actual position, said method comprising, during a flight of the aircraft: a) carrying out automatic surveillance of the surroundings of said aircraft, so as to be able to detect all aircraft in the vicinity that are located in a particular detection space situated at least in front of said aircraft; and b) for each of the aircraft in the vicinity detected in step a): b1) its actual position is determined; and b2) at least on the basis of this actual position of the aircraft in the vicinity, a verification is made as to whether a risk of collision with said aircraft exists and, if such a risk exists, warning information is generated and to do this: the actual position of said aircraft is also determined; for each of the aircraft in the vicinity that is detected in step a), the following are determined: a horizontal distance corresponding to the distance in a horizontal plane between the actual position of the aircraft and the actual position of said aircraft in the vicinity; a vertical distance corresponding to the distance in a vertical plane between the actual position of said aircraft and the actual position of said aircraft in the vicinity; and an approach speed between said aircraft and said aircraft in the vicinity; and warning information is generated when at least one of the following two conditions A and B is met: A/ said horizontal distance is greater than a first threshold value and said vertical distance is greater than a second threshold value; B/ said approach speed is greater than a third threshold value; and c) for each of the aircraft in the vicinity, for which warning information has been generated in step b2), an auxiliary characteristic symbol, which represents said aircraft in the vicinity and is positioned on said system of axes (SA) at a position representative of its actual position, is presented on said display screen and at least one graphical characteristic representing a warning signal is associated with this auxiliary characteristic symbol.