Conditional reduction of ICAO wake turbulence separation minima on final approach
(2012) 5th International Conference on Research in Air Transportation (ICRAT) — Location: University of Berkeley, California (22.May.2012)
Files
ICRAT2012_NicolasBourgeois_FinalVersion.pdf
Open Access - Adobe PDF
- 686.22 KB
Details
- Authors
- Abstract
- An intensive LIDAR measurement campaign of aircraft wake vortices (WV) in the landing phase of flight has been carried out at London Heathrow Airport. The WV trajectory and circulation as well as wind intensities have been collected. The possibility of reducing current ICAO wake turbulence minimum separations in case of favourable wind conditions is assessed by comparing the wake vortex encounter (WVE) risk associated to calm wind conditions to the WVE risk in these propitious conditions. An original approach used to quantify the frequency and the severity of the potential WVE is presented. As some of the WV are stopped being tracked before they effectively become insignificant, it is also decided to fit and extrapolate each WV circulation evolution using a two-phase decay model. First, the computed severity-frequency curves provide generic results, and indicate that a 0.5NM reduction is possible in case of "pure" headwind equal to 9-10 knots and "pure" crosswind equal to 7-8 knots. The potential local application of these conditional reductions is also evaluated at two European hubs, London Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle. The resulting head- and crosswind thresholds are very similar to those obtained for the generic analysis. Yet, in addition to this theoretical study, a complete safety assessment has to be performed before such thresholds can be used operationally to reduce separation.
- Affiliations
Citations
Bourgeois, N. (2012). Conditional reduction of ICAO wake turbulence separation minima on final approach. 5th International Conference on Research in Air Transportation (ICRAT), University of Berkeley, California. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/204422