Patent ID: 8914227

Claim:
A method of generating a flight plan enabling an aircraft to link a departure airport having a geographical position to a destination airport having a geographical position, wherein the flight plan includes a number of segments (SGi) corresponding to a value of N-1, a segment corresponding to a route and being defined by an auxiliary departure position and an auxiliary arrival position, the route being an identified straight line defined by a list of corresponding auxiliary route positions, routes being stored in a database onboard the aircraft, the method comprises the following iterative steps executed from i to N-1, beginning at i=1: first identifying, using a processor, an auxiliary departure position and a route corresponding to a segment i, said segment ending at an arrival position to be determined; second identifying, using the processor, auxiliary route positions located on the route after the auxiliary departure position and in a limited area of predefined dimensions; determining, using the processor, potential auxiliary arrival positions, by inventorying the auxiliary route positions that are localized at intercepts between the route and other routes stored in the database; classifying, using the processor, the potential auxiliary arrival positions corresponding to the inventoried auxiliary route positions in a predefined order, said step of classifying comprising the steps of: determining, for each inventoried auxiliary route position, an exit axis linking the inventoried auxiliary route position to the geographical position of said destination airport; identifying, for each inventoried auxiliary route position, an interception route intercepting the route at the inventoried auxiliary route position; and determining, for each identified interception route, a geometric criteria between the interception route and a corresponding exit axis, the geometric criteria being associated with the interception route; selecting an auxiliary arrival position from the classified potential auxiliary arrival positions; selecting an interception route from the identified interception routes; and until i=N-1, adding 1 to i and returning to the first identifying step where (a) first identifying an auxiliary departure position corresponds to identifying the just selected auxiliary arrival position and (b) first identifying a route corresponding to a segment corresponds to identifying the just selected interception route.