System and method for displaying protected airspace associated with a projected trajectory of aircraft in a confidence display

A display system for displaying protected airspace for projected trajectories of a first aircraft and at least one additional aircraft, comprising:

• a processor adapted to receive data representative of a first aircraft position and at least one additional aircraft during a phase of flight, the processor operable, in response to the data, to (i) determine a protected airspace associated with a projected trajectory of the first aircraft and a protected airspace associated with a projected trajectory of the at least one additional aircraft;
• (ii) determine the existence of an area of overlap of the protected airspace associated with the projected flight trajectory of the first aircraft and the protected airspace associated with the projected flight trajectory of the at least one additional aircraft;
• and (iii) supply one or more image rendering display commands;
• and
• a display device coupled to receive the image rendering display commands and operable, in response thereto, to render a confidence display displaying a scaled image representative of the protected airspace associated with the trajectory of the first aircraft and the protected airspace associated with the trajectory of the at least one additional aircraft, wherein the display device is configured to display the scaled image in response to a user input.

A method of displaying protected airspace for projected trajectories of a first aircraft and at least one additional aircraft on a display system, the method comprising the steps of:

• processing aircraft flight data for a first aircraft;
• processing aircraft flight data for at least one additional aircraft;
• determining a protected airspace along a projected trajectory for the first aircraft based at least in part on the processed aircraft flight data;
• determining a protected airspace along a projected trajectory for the at least one additional aircraft based at least in part on the processed aircraft flight data;
• and
• displaying a confidence display image representative of the determined protected airspace along the projected flight trajectory for the first aircraft and the determined protected airspace along the projected flight trajectory for the at least one additional aircraft on display system.