Patent Document ID: 9360866
Application ID: 14747940
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for determining with a flight management system (FMS) that includes a computer a switch-over vertical point from which an aircraft, having a current position, and flying a current vertical trajectory according to a manual piloting mode having an altitude setpoint, denoted target altitude, loaded by a pilot, switches over to a piloting mode guided by the FMS, in order to rejoin a predefined flight plan having a set of initial altitude constraints, the method comprising the steps: calculating a first predicted vertical trajectory by integration of dynamic flight equations starting from the current position of the aircraft, by extrapolating the current trajectory and by applying calculation hypotheses corresponding to the manual piloting mode for the aircraft, determining a first point of intersection between the first predicted trajectory and the target altitude, having a first abscissa, the altitude constraints with an abscissa less than the said first abscissa being called anterior constraints, the altitude constraints with an abscissa greater than the said first abscissa being called posterior constraints, determining a second predicted trajectory by forward integration of the dynamic flight equations starting from the said first intersection point and by applying calculation hypotheses for a piloting mode guided by the FMS, determining a sub-set of altitude constraints to be complied with indexed by an index i, the index 1 corresponding to the constraint closest to the current position of the aircraft, chosen from amongst the set of initial altitude constraints, each altitude constraint to be complied with having an abscissa, determining the anterior constraints incompatible with the first predicted trajectory and the posterior constraints incompatible with the second predicted trajectory, determining the said switch-over vertical point belonging to the first predicted vertical trajectory, using any incompatible constraints, and as the intersection between the said first predicted vertical trajectory and a predicted vertical trajectory calculated by integration of the dynamic flight equations by applying calculation hypotheses for a piloting mode guided by the FMS, and proposing to the pilot of the aircraft to switch from the manual piloting mode to the piloting mode guided by the FMS when the aircraft reaches said switch-over vertical point.