PROFGEN - A Computer Program for Generating Flight Profiles

Abstract : The PROFGEN computer program calculates flight path data for an aircraft moving over the earth. Written in Fortran, the program is intended to support simulations that require a six degree-of-freedom trajectory driver. PROFGEN computes the position, velocity, acceleration, attitude and attitude rate of an aircraft flying over an ellipsoidal earth and responding to maneuver commands specified by the program user. Four types of maneuver commands are available: vertical turn, horizontal turn, sinusoidal heading change and straight flight. In addition, a speed change may be superimposed on any maneuver. Extended flight speed change may be superimposed on any maneuver. Extended flight paths are created by stringing together a sequence of maneuvers. PROFGEN uses a fifth-order numerical integrator to solve the kinematic equations of motion. PROFGEN was developed on a CDC CYBER-74 computer where it compiles in about six seconds and use less than 60,000 words of memory. The program includes a plotting capability that increases the memory requirement to 137,000 when installed.