Method for an automatic search by an aircraft of a communication address of a ground entity in an ATN network

Process for the automatic searching by an aircraft for a communication address of a ground entity to be contacted of an ATN network, each address being coded according to a hierarchical binary tree structure comprising several fields, a first field for identifying the network and the subsequent fields for identifying entities of the network of the type consisting:

• in storing in a database of the aircraft the identities the addresses of a specified number of ground communication centers of an ATN network,
• in the aircraft transmitting the identity of the aircraft as known by its address to ground routers of an overflown ATN network,
• in the ground router which was able to be apprised of the identity of the aircraft transmitting its own address,
• characterized in that it consists in determining in the aircraft the address of the communication center to be contacted from the identity of the router which it receives by comparing the received address of the router with those of the addresses contained in the database, retaining as address that which has the largest number of characters in common with the address of the ground router, given the tree structure of the addresses.