Method for maintaining candidate handoff list for airborne cellular system

A method of maintaining a terrestrial cell site handoff list for an airborne cellular system comprising the steps of:

• maintaining a fixed beam pattern of one or more communications beams transmitted from an airplane relative to terrestrial cellular system users, each of the one or more communication beams supporting cellular communications for terrestrial cellular system users, all of the one or more beans covering a footprint on the ground;
• determining a location and beading of the airplane;
• determining locations of each of the one or more communication beams transmitted from the airplane based on airplane flight pattern data;
• determining locations of respective terrestrial cell sites within a vicinity of the footprints of each of the one or more beams transmitted from the airplane;
• calculating list of viable handoff nal cell site candidates for handoffs of a terrestrial mobile user between one or more communication beams and terrestrial cell sites based on maintaining a fixed communication beam pattern, the location and heading of the airplane, the locations of each of the one or more communication beams transmitted from the airplane based on airplane flight pattern data, and the locations of respective cell sites;
• and
• wherein the step of calculating a list of viable handoff terrestrial cell site candidates comprises mapping data generated from the steps of maintaining a fixed communication beam pattern, determining a location and heading of the airplane, determining locations of each of the one or more communication beams transmitted from the airplane based on airplane flight pattern data, and determining locations of respective cell sites to a cell site location database to determine the viable handoff terrestrial cell site candidates.