Aircraft Positioning Plots

[wildsky03]

I'd like to have Excel plot a chart of an aircraft position based on a certain number of givens (airspeed, bank angle, etc). Ultimately, I'd like to plot out 2-4 different aircraft all on the same chart in order to show how far apart they must be in order to not hit each other as certain aircraft make maneuvers.


Has anyone heard of or seen a graph like this before? I have a couple of prototype excel worksheets that I essentially need to merge together. One of them has all the data in purely number form...I just can't seem to get it to plot the way I want it to.


Any help would be appreciated.


-Will

 

[Hui]

Will

This is not complex, but rather bigger than I can answer in this post.

You will need a starting Time and Position (X, Y, Z) or (Lats Long, RL) for each plane, I would assume similar starting times to simplify charting later.

You will need a series of maneuvers broken down to simple movements, Straight, banking L & R, etc

for each maneuver you will need to write a UDF which will calculate a new position X Y and Z after an amount of time from the old position

Then arrange all your data so that each Row is a set of new Time increments, probably 1 minute

Then just copy the correct UDF down defining the path of each plane, The UDF will use the previous position of the plane as the starting point for the next manuevere and the time increment. Each Row will have a Time, Old X,Y,Z and New X,Y,Z column for each plane, so 4 planes will have some


Now you will have 3 Columns of data being the new X, Y and Z position, which you can plot


I'd stick to 3 plots of X,Y, Y,Z and X,Z and look for intersections


By the way, I hope you aren't a commercial pilot, I wouldn't want to be on your plane!


Hui...