Managing flight paths of a soaring aircraft

Abstract

Disclosed is a novel system and method for adjusting a flight path of an aircraft. The method begins with computing a flight path of an aircraft from a starting point to an ending point which incorporates predicted weather effects at different points in space and time. An iterative loop is entered for the flight path. Each of the following steps are performed in the iterative loop. First lift data is accessed from a fine-grain weather model associated with a geographic region of interest. The lift data is data to calculate a force that directly opposes a weight of the aircraft. In addition, lift data is accessed from sensors coupled to the aircraft. The lift data is one or more of 1) thermal data, 2) ridge lift data, 3) wave lift data, 3) convergence lift data, and 4) a dynamic soaring lift data. Numerous embodiments are disclosed.