Aircraft Landing Approach Paths with the Rainbow Optical Landing System

摘要

The Rainbow Optical Landing System is designed to present color-sequence-encoded sink-rate-error information to a pilot landing aboard a carrier. As the name implies, the Rainbow system utilizes a tricolor, dynamic light beam projected into the sky from a point near the landing spot. The approach path and associated sink rate of an aircraft whose pilot is flying the Rainbow system have been determined and plotted for several values of different system parameters. On the basis of these plots, optimal values of bean-pattern parameters can be selected. In addition, the effects on overall system performance of aircraft approach parameters such as initial error, initial range, and rate of approach to the carrier, can be displayed in the form of graphs and numerical tables. This analytical methodology can be readily applied to other systems which display higher-derivative-command signals. (Author)