Directive Beamforming Antenna

A method comprising:

• receiving an indication of a location of a ground station relative to an in-flight aircraft;
• determining a pointing direction for steering a directive beam toward the location;
• and
• employing a phase control module for control of an antenna assembly of an aircraft to steer the directive beam toward the location, the antenna assembly comprising a plurality of antenna elements disposed in a circular pattern and equidistant from each other in angular separation relative to a common reference point at a center of the circular pattern,
• wherein employing the phase control module comprises applying selected phase fronts to each of the antenna elements to generate constructive and destructive interference patterns to define the directive beam, and
• wherein the selected phase fronts include no phase adjustment, a positive phase adjustment value and a negative phase adjustment value, the positive and negative phase adjustment values each having a same magnitude.