Shared Models of Flight Management System Vertical Guidance

Solutions to operational and training issues with flight automation should be based on a complete model of the behaviors of the avionics software shared by pilots, developers, trainers, and human factors researchers. The operational procedure model, described in this article, represents the behavior of the avionics software as a set of intentions associated with situation–action rules. This article focuses on the guidance function incorporated in flight management systems and presents an operational procedure model of vertical guidance.