I have Flightradar24 data here. Which are in the following structure.
latitude longitude altitude lastUpdate velocity
....
49.34240 8.77556 19650 2018-11-01 09:38:09 415
49.35040 8.77490 19550 2018-11-01 09:38:15 414
49.35617 8.77442 19475 2018-11-01 09:38:20 414
49.37045 8.77308 19275 2018-11-01 09:38:24 412
49.38132 8.77208 19125 2018-11-01 09:38:30 411
49.38964 8.77132 19025 2018-11-01 09:38:34 410
49.39796 8.77054 18900 2018-11-01 09:38:39 409
....
This is data for a specific flight. My goal is to split the flight in two parts.
- Pt 1: Airborne -> Exit cruise time / start Approach
- Pt 2: Approach Start --> Touchdown
Well, I am not to deep into aviation. My naive approach would be:
If the flying altitude has dropped continuously over the last k points, then the first timestamp is the approach start.
Now I ask myself, in what period of time does a passenger plane leave the cruising phase?
This is different from the pilot calculating the top of descent explained here: What is a rule of thumb for when to begin a descent?
How much ft altitude does an airplane usually lose when it comes out of the cruising phase? And how long does he need for that?
The background is that I want to understand how long a passenger plane usually takes to land at a specific airport from the approach phase. Optimally, I then see that on days when the airspace over the airport is fuller on other days, times, the approach phase takes much longer. Or do you think there are other factors playing an important role? Or is the approach not so correct. Maybe it would be better if I do not look from Approachphase, but from the time where a certain radius was reached. 80km before arrival?