Patent ID: 8755954

Claim:
A system for generating an alert signal in a terrain awareness and warning system of an aircraft, said system comprising: a forward-looking weather radar system configured to acquire data representative of terrain located within a search volume bounded by configurable lateral limits, and generate a terrain data set representative of only a first location of the highest terrain cell within the search volume; an airport database; a navigation system; a forward-looking terrain alert processor (“FLTA processor”) configured to receive the terrain data set from the forward-looking weather radar system, determine a measured terrain clearance altitude of the highest terrain cell, retrieve airport-related data from the airport database, receive first data representative of the position, altitude, and attitude of the aircraft from the navigation system, define a phase of flight and flight attitude parameter, define a required terrain clearance altitude as a function of the phase of flight and flight attitude parameter, generate a first alert signal if the measured terrain clearance altitude is equal to or less than the required terrain clearance altitude, and provide the first alert signal to a crew alerting system, wherein the crew alerting system is configured to receive the first alert signal.