Aviation flight computer calculations - the programmatic equivalent of an E6B flight computer. Pure functions for wind triangles, altitude corrections, airspeed conversions, and more.

Documentation

Part of the @squawk aviation library suite. See all packages on npm.

Installation

npm install @squawk/flight-math

Usage

All exports are organized by domain namespace, following the same pattern as @squawk/units:

import { atmosphere, airspeed, wind } from '@squawk/flight-math';

// Density altitude from field observations
const da = atmosphere.densityAltitude(5000, 29.92, 35); // field elev, altimeter, OAT

// True altitude corrected for non-standard temperature
const ta = atmosphere.trueAltitude(10000, 29.85, -10);

// CAS from TAS (inverse of isa.trueAirspeedFromCalibratedKt in @squawk/units)
const cas = airspeed.calibratedAirspeedFromTrueAirspeed(250, 20000);

// E6B wind triangle: find heading and groundspeed for a desired course
const wt = wind.solveWindTriangle(150, 270, 310, 25); // TAS, course, wind dir, wind speed
// wt.trueHeadingDeg, wt.windCorrectionAngleDeg, wt.groundSpeedKt

// Headwind and crosswind components for a runway
const hw = wind.headwindCrosswind(310, 15, 280); // wind dir, wind speed, runway heading
// hw.headwindKt, hw.crosswindKt

// Absolute crosswind for limit checking
const xw = wind.crosswindComponent(310, 15, 280);

// Reverse wind triangle: find the wind from observed flight data
const w = wind.findWind(135, 150, 275, 270); // GS, TAS, heading, track
// w.directionDeg, w.speedKt

Relationship to @squawk/units

This package complements @squawk/units, which provides unit conversions, formatting, and the ISA standard atmosphere model. @squawk/flight-math provides higher-level computations that combine multiple inputs (wind triangles, density altitude from field observations, etc.) and uses @squawk/units internally.

Functions that already exist in @squawk/units are not re-exported. Import them directly:

| Calculation | Package | | ------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Pressure altitude from indicated alt + QNH | @squawk/units (pressure.pressureAltitudeFt) | | Density altitude from PA + OAT | @squawk/units (isa.densityAltitudeFt) | | TAS from CAS | @squawk/units (isa.trueAirspeedFromCalibratedKt) | | Mach from TAS | @squawk/units (isa.machFromTrueAirspeedKt) | | TAS from Mach | @squawk/units (isa.trueAirspeedFromMachKt) | | Density altitude from field observations | @squawk/flight-math (atmosphere.densityAltitude) | | True altitude correction | @squawk/flight-math (atmosphere.trueAltitude) | | CAS from TAS | @squawk/flight-math (airspeed.calibratedAirspeedFromTrueAirspeed) | | Wind triangle / components | @squawk/flight-math (wind.*) |

Namespaces

• atmosphere - Altitude calculations combining multiple field inputs
• airspeed - Airspeed conversions not covered by @squawk/units
• wind - E6B wind triangle, headwind/crosswind components, reverse wind triangle
• descent - Top of descent, required descent/climb rate, gradient conversions, VDP
• navigation - Holding pattern entry, DME arc lead, 1-in-60 rule
• turn - Standard rate bank angle, turn radius, time to turn, load factor
• glide - Glide distance with and without wind correction
• pivotal - Pivotal altitude for ground reference maneuvers
• solar - Sunrise/sunset, civil twilight, day/night determination (NOAA algorithm)
• magnetic - Magnetic declination and field components (WMM2025), true/magnetic bearing conversion
• planning - Fuel required, endurance, point of no return, equal time point