A decision support tool for weather and terrain avoidance during departure

Abstract

Hazardous weather can pose a significant threat to aircraft safety and may result in a substantial increase in crew workload, such as during departure manoeuvers. If the weather hazard conflicts with the flight plan, including the Standard Instrument Departure (SID) route, the pilots need to plan and execute an avoidance manoeuver. To date, this is still mostly a manual process, with the crew gathering information from multiple sources (including Air Traffic Control (ATC), weather forecasts and on-board weather radar returns) in order to determine an avoidance route. This paper proposes a tool to assist pilots by partially automating the task of avoiding hazardous weather during departure. The tool functions by detecting weather conflicts along the SID and presenting the crew with options to delay the take-off manoeuver or to fly an alternative path in order to avoid the weather hazards, while also ensuring safe separation from terrain. As a result, the tool has the potential to reduce crew workload and increase situation awareness. This paper discusses the proposed decision support tool in terms of (a) the algorithm used to detect and avoid bad weather and (b) the Human Machine Interface (HMI) that has been designed to present weather avoidance solutions to the crew.