Aircraft Performance for Open Air Traffic Simulations

The BlueSky Open Air Tra_c Simulator developed by the Control & Simulation section of TU Delft aims at supporting research for analysing Air Tra_c Management concepts by providing an open source simulation platform. The goal of this study was to complement BlueSky with aircraft performance models in order to enable performance- related Air Tra_c Management studies. The aircraft performance model developed within this work consists of a kinetic Flight Dynamics Model, which stores the required performance characteristics in a database with type-speci_c aircraft and engine coe_- cients. Currently, sixteen commercial turbofan and turboprop aircraft from di_erent range and weight categories are represented. To evaluate the quality of the aircraft per- formance model, its outputs were compared to results from literature as well as from real ights. It was found that the applied methodologies for the determination of air- craft performance accurately model high-speed drag polars as well as fuel consumption for cruising and taxiing aircraft. The fuel consumption model of climbing and descend- ing aircraft, however, leaves room for improvement. Possible strategies for obtaining a more precise estimation of fuel burn over the entire ight are recommended based on the results of this study. With this work, the BlueSky Open Air Tra_c Simulator considers individual aircraft performance. This is an important step in the creation of an open simulation platform for Air Tra_c Management research.