A Statistical Analysis of Lateral GPS-Guided Category A and B Aircraft Final Approach Errors

摘要

Data has been analyzed for the cross-track component of the Flight Technical Error (FTE) and the Total System Error (TSE) associated with Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation for 311 category A and B test approaches performed at Westheimer Airport in Norman, Oklahoma. Approach errors at along-track positions three to seven kilometers from runway threshold are found to be approximately Gaussian near their mean but non-Gaussian away from their mean. Distributions are plotted and Kolmogorov-Smirnov analysis of the D statistic and hypothesis testing of skewness and kurtosis are employed to explore a Gaussian fit to error distributions. Error distributions are also compared with those of the Collision Risk Model (CRM) [1] (for Instrument Landing System [ILS] approaches).