The subject of the present invention is a method of estimating, at any
point of a path of an aircraft, characteristics of the wind making it
possible to take very close account of the winds to construct predictions
of the times of passage and of the consumption of the aircraft along its
flight plan, and this method is characterized in that it consists in
collecting, around the trajectory of the aircraft, a grid of parameter
values of winds at a predetermined number of points in space, in
comparing these values to those deriving from space-time wind trend
models, in selecting, path section by section, the most likely model, and
in interpolating, for each section, the local characteristics of the wind
of all the points of interest of the trajectory.