TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT ADVISOR :: essays research papers

Abstract The Traffic Management Advisor (TMA) is part of the FAA’s Free Flight program which has been on going for the past 12 years in an attempt to enable controllers the means in which to manage airspace and reduce delays at airports safely and more efficiently. It uses flight plan information along with environmental concerns to aide controllers in sequencing arrivals at airports and makes recommendations for traffic patterns to aide in undue congestion. The TMA has boosted efficiency of the air traffic controllers and helped in fuel efficiency and safety for the airlines, passengers and crews. The Concept of the Traffic Management Advisor   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Traffic Management Advisor (TMA) is used to aide the air traffic controllers and coordinators thru graphical map, which display alerts, when dealing with aircraft when they are on the outer meter, meter fixed, final approach and threshold for landing at an airport. The TMA schedules and sequences times for their orbits and landings at airports which take a lot of the stress and calculations away from the controllers. It also schedules their landing runways for the aircraft which helps with separation and safety of the aircraft. It does this by computing their speed and approach angles which can be seen on a live Doppler type of screen.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The TMA system relies on eight processes which include the following: 1) the communications manager which shares information between its databases, 2) the radar daemon which has a link between the TMA and the controllers computer, 3) the weather daemon which uses weather information from the national weather service, 4) the timeline graphical user interface which receives and uses information from the traffic management controllers computer, 5) the route analyzer which decides which route the aircraft will use, 6) the planview graphical user interface which uses input from the controllers and displays the information, 7) the trajectory synthesizer which determines the estimated time of arrival and the descent profile of the aircraft, and 8) the dynamic planner which determines the runway and the sequences of the other incoming traffic.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The TMA computes the aircrafts schedule and sequencing between 40 and 200 miles from the airport, even before they have reached the airports controlled airspace. All of this information comes from the aircrafts flight plan and the TMA has the ability to adjust runway assignments and the sequencing of the aircraft also due to environmental conditions or in response to the input by the controllers.