Due to the continued growth of the aviation industry, emission and noise production are at an all-time high. In order to reduce this, conventional approaches could be replaced by continuous descent approaches (CDA). These eliminate all level segments, greatly reducing the average thrust setting, resulting in large reductions in noise and emission production. The problem with almost all CDA procedures is that it makes it much more difficult to predict the future position of an aircraft since it flies its own optimal descent profile, with zero thrust. This results in a need for more separation, greatly reducing the airport capacity. This can largely be solved by using a fixed, constant descent angle for all aircraft. Assessing the robustness of such a concept for a high capacity airport is therefore an important stepping stone towards actual implementation.
Graduated: May 2021