Abstract: A system and method of storing and recovering a flight plan includes loading flight plan data into working memory of an aircraft flight management system (FMS). When the FMS determines that a storage triggering event has occurred, a copy of at least a portion of the flight plan data is transmitted from the working memory to a non-volatile storage medium. A display command is supplied to a display device, at least following recovery of the FMS from a severe reset, that causes the display device to render a retrieval prompt. A retrieval command is received at the FMS, via a user input device, that causes the FMS to retrieve the at least a portion of the flight plan data from the non-volatile memory and store it in the working memory.

Abstract: A system and method for generating, supplying, and implementing an optimized descent approach profile for an aircraft includes transmitting a current flight plan from an onboard flight management system (FMS) to an off-board computing device. The optimized descent approach profile for the aircraft is computed, in the off-board computing device,. One or more new waypoints or points of interest that are not on the current descent approach profile, but which comprise the optimized descent approach profile, are identified in the off-board computing device. The new waypoints or points of interest are transmitted from the off-board system to the onboard FMS. The current descent approach profile is updated, in the FMS, to include the new waypoints or points of interest, thereby generating an updated flight plan. The updated flight plan is implementing in the onboard FMS.