Flight Dynamics, Inc.

Walter A Johnson

Douglas W Ford

Shahram Daneshmandi

The present invention comprises a system for detecting windshear and associated downdraft effects when they are encountered in flight by an aircraft. The system includes an input unit (12), a first processing unit (14), a second processing unit (16), an output unit (18), and a pilot warning device (20). The input unit receives aircraft performance data from the instruments and/or flight systems on the aircraft and preconditions this data to produce a set of signals corresponding to various aerodynamic and inertial input parameters. The first processing unit differences signals representing the aerodynamically derived and inertially derived accelerations of the aircraft in order to generate windshear signals. These windshear signals are then corrected for pitch rate induced coriolis acceleration effects. The corrected signals are used to form a signals representing longitudinal windshear along the horizontal heading axis of the aircraft and the change in aircraft climb gradient due to longitudinal windshear. The second processing unit difference aerodynamically derived and inertially derived flight path signals to generate a windshear type change in climb gradient signal corresponding to the effects of downdrafts. The output unit sums the change in climb gradient signals to produce an overall aircraft loss of performance signal which it then conditions for threshold detection purposes. This final conditioned signal is furnished to the pilot warning device which provides a visible or audible warning in order to advise the aircraft pilot of potentially hazardous flight conditions. In an alternate embodiment, coriolis acceleration effects are eliminated by forming a signal representing aerodynamically derived acceleration in the horizontal plane. The longitudinal windshear signal is then generated by forming an inertial acceleration signal in the horizontal plane and differencing the respective aerodynamic and inertial acceleration signals.

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San Pedro, CA, United States of America

Walter A Johnson