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Introduction
According to the global market forecast report published by Airbus (2019), it is predicted that the world air traffic will grow approximately 4.3% annually in the 20 years between 2019 and 2038, and according to the report published by Boeing (2020), another important aircraft manufacturer, it will grow by approximately 4% annually in the 20-year period between 2020 and 2039. Since this increased air traffic will increase the density level at airports, it may cause aircraft to wait longer for take-off and landing, and air traffic procedures applied to manage density may cause aircraft to spend more time in the air during climb and descent profiles. As a result of these, total fuel consumption, which is one of the biggest cost inputs of airline operators, environmental impacts of emissions related to fuel consumption and the amount of noise due to airplanes will increase depending on the increasing number of aircraft and traffic density (Senzig et al., 2009). In this context, the aviation community has optimization goals such as producing more efficient aircrafts/engines, finding more efficient air traffic procedures to manage air traffic more effectively and creating flight performance models that will maximize aircraft performance.
One of the approaches used in this context is continuous descent approach (CDA). In this approach, unlike conventional methods that use gradual descent, the aircraft maintains the cruising altitude until a certain distance remains from the runway and descends at an appropriate flight-path angle (FPA). During descent, the engine is brought to idle or near idle power setting. In this approach, the aim is to reduce fuel consumption and the amount of noise at airports as much as possible (Alam et al., 2010). Despite these advantages of the CDA, descent with this method requires a very good compatibility among pilots, controllers and aircraft, and in this respect, this method is somewhat complex (Turgut, 2011). Another study conducted for this purpose is the Base of Aircraft Data (BADA) resource developed by Eurocontrol and frequently used in air traffic management (ATM) applications. BADA, which covers almost all aircraft (BADA 3.13 covers 519 different aircraft), is consulted for subjects such as the estimation and simulation of the aircraft trajectory in ATM applications (Nuic et al., 2010). BADA source includes many models...