Optimal trajectory planning for flight through microburst wind shears

Abstract Microburst wind shear is a potential hazard for aviation safety, especially in some crucial phases of flight like take-off and landing. Optimal trajectories could be useful for suitable retrieval of transport aircrafts encountering microburst. These types of trajectories are investigated in this paper for landing phase in two scenarios of escape and landing utilizing the most recent realistic analytical model of the microburst. In this regard, a set of complete six degrees of freedom aircraftʼs equations of motion is taken in a variation formulation of this problem. This approach is particularly useful for determination of optimal escape or approach trajectories constrained with respect to physical controls as well as some crucial motion states. The set of resulting necessary conditions for optimality is solved numerically and analyzed with respect to a series of microburst characteristics as well as some typical aircraft initial engagement scenarios like the flight condition and the throttle setting. The results are promising in the sense that for the most typical microbursts, optimal trajectories and controls could be feasible with available control limits, thus allowing for a safe passage or landing of transport planes through microburst.