Estimating the Probability of Vertical Overlap from the Paired Aircraft Data Obtained in the European Vertical Data Collection Using the Program DGLDiF

摘要

The problem of estimating the probability of vertical overlap in possible future airway systems with a vertical separation standard of 1000 ft above Flight Level 290 is addressed. It forms part of an overall safety assessment of such potential systems. The problem is solved by developing a mathematical probability model of the vertical distance between aircraft in a pair. A priori unknown model parameters are estimated by means of the maximum likelihood method from presently available data on the height keeping performance of aircraft in Europe. Special attention is given to the effect on the modelling process of the limited amount of data on large height keeping errors.