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About Aircraft-Range.com The Technology and People Behind Aircraft-Range

Aircraft-Range.com is a unique platform that allows users to visualize aircraft range while incorporating real annual wind data. Unlike most tools that calculate range under “no wind” conditions, which often lead to misleading results, this tool provides realistic insights into how winds impact an aircraft’s operational range. It is an essential resource for anyone serious about evaluating aircraft for reaching specific destinations.

Understanding Wind Effects

Aircraft travel relative to the air, making wind a critical factor in their performance, especially at cruising altitudes where winds are significantly stronger.

  • Headwinds (winds blowing against the aircraft's direction) reduce speed and range.
  • Tailwinds (winds blowing with the aircraft's direction) increase speed and extend range.

Depending on the wind direction and strength, flight times can vary by up to an hour, resulting in differences of hundreds of miles in range.

How Wind Effects Are Calculated

Although it is impossible to predict exact weather conditions for a specific flight, statistical models allow us to estimate wind strengths within predefined thresholds. A common benchmark is the 85% probability level, which aligns with one standard deviation in a Gaussian (normal) distribution.

Aircraft Range Wind Dataset

To provide accurate results, we collaborated with meteorological experts to compile more than 50 years of wind data from various meteorological institutes. Over 200TB of data was processed to develop a precise statistical wind dataset, dividing the Earth's atmosphere into millions of cells, each with its corresponding wind profile. Still collecting and growing

Calculating Range with Wind: The Triangle of Velocities Problem

The wind’s effect on an aircraft’s flight path is addressed through the Triangle of Velocities See illustration . This principle illustrates how ground speed, the speed over the Earth’s surface, results from combining the aircraft’s airspeed with the wind velocity as vectors.

Key effects include:

  • Headwinds reduce ground speed and range.
  • Tailwinds increase ground speed and range.
  • Crosswinds require heading adjustments and can indirectly affect range.

Over long flights, changing wind conditions add complexity to the calculation. Our model addresses this by simulating the flight through millions of atmospheric cells, each with localized wind vectors. By iteratively solving the Triangle of Velocities along the route, we ensure accurate modeling of cumulative wind effects on range. In predictive mode and in real-time ETA

Inbound and Outbound Flights

One insight offered by Aircraft-Range.com is the difference in inbound and outbound ranges due to wind effects. Certain destinations may be reachable in one direction but not the other way back. These differences are visualized through animations that highlight areas affected by one-way feasibility.

Aircraft Performance

To calculate range accurately, our model simulates three-dimensional flight paths, incorporating variations in wind conditions at different altitudes. This requires aircraft-specific performance data, including climb and descent profiles. We use data from open-source repositories like Eurocontrol (https://contentzone.eurocontrol.int/aircraftperformance). Registered users can also input custom aircraft specifications for tailored calculations.

Visualization Features

  • Wind Animation: High-altitude statistical winds are displayed as an animation to help users better understand their effects.
  • Projection Options: Users can choose from several Earth projections to visualize ranges in their preferred format.
  • Earth Customization: Customize country colors to suit specific needs or preferences.

Seasonality and Beyond

Range calculations assume an 85% probability threshold. However, users can explore alternate probability assumptions for more customized results. Seasonal variations also significantly impact wind conditions, meaning range calculations will differ depending on the time of year.

For further customization or advanced calculations, please contact us at [email protected].

Important Considerations

  • Not a Flight Planning Tool:
    Aircraft-Range.com does not evaluate the feasibility of flights. For instance, no checks are made for takeoff or landing capabilities at specific airports.
  • Official Charts Required:
    Only official charts should be used for flight planning purposes.
  • Minimum Reserves:

    Calculated ranges do not account for regulatory fuel reserves or other minimum fuel requirements, which must be considered when planning actual flights. Always ensure compliance with legal and operational reserve standards.

  • ETOPS Operations:

    For Extended-range Twin-engine Operational Performance Standards (ETOPS) flights, Aircraft-Range.com does not verify compliance with ETOPS alternates or consider any related requirements. Users are responsible for ensuring adherence to ETOPS guidelines as mandated by aviation authorities.

  • Disclaimer:

    Aircraft-Range.com provides no warranties regarding its suitability for specific purposes. Calculations are for informational use only and should not replace official flight planning tools or methods.

Self-Hosting Options

If you are an airline or aircraft operator interested in integrating or displaying content from Aircraft-Range.com on your website, please contact us at [email protected]

Questions and Feedback

We welcome your questions and feedback at [email protected]. If you use the tool, we kindly ask that you credit us: “Chart made available by Aircraft-Range.com”.

About the author:

The founder of aircraft-range, Jean-Louis Cehovic holds a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from ENAC – the French Civil Aviation Academy. He spent nearly a decade at Thales, the company behind TopSky, the world's leading air traffic control systems, used to manage over 80% of the global airspace. During his time at Thales, Jean-Louis specialized in developing and optimizing algorithms for calculating flight times across various routes. His work provided air traffic controllers with precise predictions of aircraft positions and Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA). Notably, he pioneered a new method for modeling aircraft trajectories using Extended Kalman Filtering (EKF), a technique well-suited for flight path calculations involving nonlinear dynamics, such as aircraft motion, wind effects, and sensor measurements. His algorithm became a cornerstone of modern aircraft range calculations.

Later in his career, Jean-Louis transitioned into leadership roles, including serving as the managing director of a business jet operator at Dassault before moving into business jet sales. Leveraging his expertise in business jet performance, he identified a significant market gap: the absence of a tool capable of accurately demonstrating the real-world benefits and limitations of jets in terms of range. Notably, no existing tools incorporated statistical wind data. To address this, Jean-Louis began collaborating with meteorological experts, including Dr. Kailler from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Through this collaboration, he gained access to the most comprehensive and accurate wind dataset available. Using this dataset, he modeled statistical wind conditions worldwide at all flight levels.

To condense the vast dataset into a usable format without sacrificing accuracy, Jean-Louis applied the Bivariate Normal Distribution, a mathematical tool used to model relationships between two correlated variables. In this context, the two variables represented wind speed and wind direction, both of which are critical for aircraft performance. The Bivariate Normal Distribution enabled Jean-Louis to capture the statistical characteristics of wind at each location, including its average behavior and variability, while maintaining correlations between the two variables. By leveraging this model with a team of mathematicians and industry leaders, he could reduce the complexity of the dataset while retaining the essential probabilistic information. The result was a streamlined dataset that accurately represented global atmospheric conditions with a high degree of reliability.

Equipped with this advanced wind model and an optimized aircraft path estimator, through Aircraft-Range, Jean-Louis developed a state-of-the-art tool for calculating ranges of aircrafts with statistical winds. The flight path estimator was designed to perform millions of atmospheric cell computations within seconds, ensuring both precision and efficiency. The algorithm was further enhanced with multi-threaded parallel processing, leveraging multi-core processors to deliver results to users in mere milliseconds.

To complement the computational backend, Jean-Louis sought a user-friendly way to present the results. Collaborating with the open-source community, he adopted modern technologies, including Java and D3.js, for bespoke data visualization. One of the key features he implemented was the Adaptive Sampling Algorithm of D3.js, which is designed to dynamically reduce data density in visualizations without losing critical trends or patterns. This algorithm enabled him to display large datasets, such as global wind conditions or range maps, in an interactive and visually comprehensible way, even in web browsers with limited processing power. These tools also addressed the challenges of map projection distortions. Inspired by Tissot's indicatrix—a method developed by French mathematician Nicolas Auguste Tissot in 1859 to measure map projection distortion—Jean-Louis provided users with projection options that minimized such distortions with different views such as the Paterson projection used by default.

This project, while the result of collaborative efforts and iterative improvements, provided aviation professionals with a practical and reliable tool for calculating aircraft range. By integrating statistical wind models with advanced visualization techniques, it offered a deeper understanding of aircraft performance in real-world conditions, contributing to more informed decision-making across the aviation industry such as aircraft manufacturers, airlines, business jet operators, charter brokers, aircraft leasing companies, banks, charters brokers, jet brokers and aviation consultants.