Abstract: Current empirical parameter debugging methods for arc heaters rely heavily on operator experience, requiring numerous test runs and demonstrating low efficiency. A method called proportional tracking method is proposed to predict the operating parameters of arc heaters, based on the energy conservation equation, empirical voltage formula, sonic enthalpy formula, and stagnation enthalpy formula. Existing experimental data backtesting has shown that when the ratio of the simulated enthalpy value to the reference enthalpy value and the ratio of the air flow rate to the reference air flow rate are within a range of 1.5 averagely, the prediction deviation of the current, voltage, and gas flow rate is within 10%, for different arc heater inner diameters, lengths, and model types. The real experimental state debugging shows that after iterating twice with this method, the deviation between the predicted results and the actual results does not exceed 4%. Using this method to assist in state debugging, the required number of runs for each state is about 2～3, which is significantly lower than the number of runs for manual experience debugging(about 4～5), demonstrating the method's strong guidance value in experimental parameter optimization.