New Concept for Wake-Vortex Hazard Mitigation Using Onboard Measurement Equipment

Abstract

Wake-vortex hazards are a huge threat in aviation. These hazards are well accepted in the vicinity of airports (both departure and arrival). But also a number of en route incidents have happened in the past. Current wake-vortex mitigation strategies are based on static distances (in space and/or time). In future air traffic management concepts of Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research and NextGen, these static distances will be replaced by dynamic separation strategies. Furthermore, concepts for self-separation of aircraft are described. This paper will discuss the work at Technische Universität Braunschweig, where a new concept for wake-vortex hazard mitigation has been developed. The basic idea of the new concept is that only a criticality parameter will be transmitted between aircraft to ensure a safe separation even within new self-separation concepts. The criticality parameter will give an indication about the severity (and therefore criticality to the following aircraft) of the vortices. Additionally, Technische Universität Braunschweig will install wind-turbulence measurement equipment onboard its research aircraft. This installation will be also be described, and the possible usage will be discussed.

Preliminary Impact Assessment of the Ad Hoc Separation Minima: A New Separation Mode

“…Lower limit value (3 NM): in en-route phase when the preceding aircraft belongs to an equal or lower category than the succeeding one, the MWS separation may be smaller than 5 NM [28]. There are several projects which have studied or are studying the reduction of MWS and proposing new en-route MWS values: [28,30,31]. Therefore, it was decided to take the value of 3 NM as the lower limit of the range of variable separations.…”