Abstract:

A research work about wheel track deviation of civil aircrafts running on runway is presented. A non-contact system with high-frequency measurement of aircraft gear position is independently developed and used. 4 015 groups of aircraft wheel path data in total are measured in two periods of time on the west runway of Shanghai
Hongqiao International Airport while all those aircrafts are in the state of taking off. The characteristics of wheel track deviation on the west runway are analyzed via mathematical statistics tools. Results show that the whole deviation of aircrafts is a little left to the centerline of runway. Airfield lighting can lead wheel track path to be more close to the centerline of runway. Results of Kolmogorov-Smirnov test indicate that the deviation of most civil aircrafts'wheel track obeys negative skewness distribution rather than normal distribution,and on west runway ofShanghai Hongqiao International Airport the mean value of whole civil aircraftsdeviation data is-0.34m and it's standard deviation is 0.84 m.

Key words: airport runway, aircraft wheel path, non-contact test, lateral deviation, negative skewness