Aircraft pairing tool for formation flight

A system to identify pairs of aircraft which can be brought together in a pairing formation as a leader aircraft and a follower aircraft flying in a wake upwash of the leader aircraft to generate fuel savings and to generate information required to enable a flight operation comprising:

• a first data module configured to source historical data including aircraft flight track data, and weather and traffic conditions at airports and in flight zones,
• a first assessment module configured to transform data from the first data module and to identify pairs of aircraft flights which were sufficiently close together under historical conditions to be suitable for the pairing formation, and for each identified pair of aircraft flights, to estimate a magnitude of a fuel saving benefit and any associated flight time impact which would occur if the aircraft of the identified pair of aircraft flights had flown together in the pairing formation, and to retrieve additional historical data relating to each identified pair of aircraft flights from the first data module including weather and traffic information,
• a database configured to store the information relating to each pair of aircraft flights identified by the assessment module, as well as the additional historical data including weather and traffic information relating to each identified pair of aircraft flights, the database including an indexing system allowing a linkage of the information for identified flight pairs to scheduled airline flights across time,
• an input module configured to allow real-time data inputs of data relating to flight status and tracking of scheduled airline flights of the identified flight pairs and at least one of airline flight-plans, air traffic control inputs, or weather and situation monitors,
• a second assessment module configured to compute a measure of likely proximity of pairs of planned flights and to generate a real-time list of possible flight pairs based on information from the database and the input module,
• a user interface and display device configured to permit users to input data including a registration of an aircraft scheduled for use on a specific flight and an aircraft's level of capability for participating in a formation flight pair as either the leader aircraft or as the follower aircraft, and to display possible flight pairs for each airline flight, and
• a module to hold flight plan content for flight operations of the aircraft for each airline flight.