Patent ID: 8494692

Claim:
A piloting assistance process for an aircraft to be performed during a landing phase on an airport being provided with a plurality of landing runways the aircraft including an automatic braking system being able to automatically brake the aircraft on the ground depending on a selected braking mode chosen from a plurality of different braking modes respectively performing different strength brakings, and the process comprises: (a) determining one of the landing runways of the airport to be a selected landing runway used for landing of the aircraft; (b) determining characteristics of the selected landing runway; (c) automatically and repeatedly determining the current position of the aircraft as a reference point connected to the selected landing runway; and (d) as soon as the aircraft flies at a predetermined height above the selected landing runway, automatically: (d1) estimating, using at least the current position and, further, using a standard descent plane to the selected landing runway and a performance model of the aircraft being calibrated on the braking capacity of a currently selected braking mode on the automatic braking system, a minimum braking distance representing the distance along the selected landing runway until the aircraft stops on the selected landing runway; (d2) comparing the minimum braking distance to a length of the selected landing runway; (d3) if the minimum braking distance is higher than the length of the selected landing runway, and as long as this is the case, automatically emitting at least one alarm in the cockpit of the aircraft, wherein, the alarm informs a crew of the aircraft that the braking capacity of the currently selected braking mode on the automatic braking system will not be sufficient for safely stopping the aircraft on the selected landing runway, thereby prompting the crew to select on the automatic braking system, a braking mode with a braking strength higher than that of the currently selected braking mode; and (d4) if the at least one alarm is emitted in the cockpit in step (d3), receiving a new braking mode selected by the crew at a mode selection input device, and then returning to step (d1) to verify whether the new braking mode selected by the crew will result in a minimum braking distance less than the length of the selected landing runway.