Method and device for assisting the piloting of an aircraft from a voluminous set of memory-stored documents

A device for assisting the piloting of an aerodyne, comprising:

• a processor connected to other items of electronic equipment embarked on the aerodyne for acquiring in real time data relating to a current context of the aerodyne,
• at least one man/machine communication terminal connected to the processor and comprising a display screen and control and data entry keys, and
• memories accessible by the processor where all data useful and required to conduct a flight in accordance with air regulations is stored in the form of a data base in which links are established between each of possible contexts of said aerodyne and data most suitably adapted to said context, each of said links being associated with an order of relevance with respect to the linked context,
• the processor including:
• first means for exploiting the data of the data base,
• means for storing and updating said data related to the current context of the aerodyne,
• means for preselecting in the data base the data which are linked to said current context and for classifying said preselected data by using said orders of relevance associated with said links,
• second means for exploiting the classified preselected data.

A man/machine communication terminal for assisting the piloting of an aerodyne, connected to a system comprising:

• a processor connected to other items of electronic equipment embarked on the aerodyne for acquiring in real time data relating to a current context of the aerodyne,
• memories accessible by the processor where in particular all the information useful for the conducting of a flight and data useful and required to conduct a flight in accordance with air regulations is stored in the form of a data base in which links are established between each of possible contexts of said aerodyne and data most suitably adapted to said context, each of said links being associated with an order of relevance with respect to the linked context,
• the processor including:
• first means for exploiting the data of the data base,
• means for storing and updating said data related to the current context of the aerodyne,
• means for preselecting in the data base the data which linked to said current context, and means for classifying said preselected data by using said orders of relevance associated with said links, and
• second means for exploiting the classified preselected data,
• wherein said terminal comprises a display screen and keys for entering information and carrying out commands, said keys being divided at the periphery of the screen into four sets of successive keys, a first set being allocated to activation of the exploitation means, a second set to carry out selections when a menu is displayed on the screen, a third set being allocated to management functions of the terminal, and a fourth set to display last selections made by the operator and reactivate said last selections, said keys being reconfigurable according to a page displayed on the screen and each being associated with an adjacent zone of the screen where the function allocated to it is displayed.