A Sensitivity Analysis on the Airborne Conflict Rate in a Free Flight Concept

Abstract

The Free Flight (FF) concept is a potential alternative to improve route efficiency and airspace capacity (17). This research aims to evaluate how gains in airspace capacity correlates to losses in airspace safety within a FF scenario. The variables chosen to indicate airspace capacity are the airspace size and the number of aircraft within this airspace. For a 2-D scenario, the simulation results indicate that the averages time, distance or speed (time and distance) flown by the aircraft impacts on the average conflict rate per aircraft per hour.