US Patent 10071818 Systems and methods for providing airplane performance calculations

A flight management system which is capable of monitoring changes in airplane characteristics such as fuel flow and drag. When a predetermined event is triggered, the flight management system (FMS) creates or updates a set of “dynamic” tables in a database which enable FMS performance algorithms to utilize the latest fuel flow and drag data. Using the updated aerodynamic and propulsion performance data in the dynamic tables, the flight management system is able to compute more accurate flight profile and trip prediction parameters such as estimated time of arrival and predicted fuel consumption quantity.