Using Multilateration Data in Probabilistic Analysis of Wake Vortex Hazards for Landing Aircraft

Abstract

Wake vortices are a safety hazard to landing aircraft. A landing aircraft that encounters a wake may roll; this might result in a fatal crash if the roll is severe enough or if the aircraft is low enough to the ground. Therefore, aircraft are separated by a sufficient distance to ensure that wakes have time to decay in strength. However, because of the inherent variability in wake behavior and aircraft separation and position, there is still a possibility for a wake encounter. To estimate the probability of such encounters, a hybrid simulation methodology is presented. The approach is hybrid in the sense that part of the simulation is conducted by using a direct data feed of flight-track data, and the other part is obtained by simulation of wake-evolution models. The approach is demonstrated on a 1-week sample of flight tracks to predict the frequency of potential wake alerts. A wake alert is defined as an event in which the trailing aircraft is in a region of space where the wake is likely to be. The results depend on atmospheric conditions and other model parameters.

Characterization of Surface and Aloft Winds for Advanced Parallel Runway Operations

“…• How much measurable interaircraft spacing reduction will there be? Much of the engineering research literature in this domain has focused on the latter-designing the spacing reduction concepts and understanding the fundamental physical behavior behind wake propagation and decay (12)(13)(14)(15). However, this paper is primarily concerned with addressing the former question through providing insight into the effects of wind behavior on the applicability of winddependent wake-based procedures.…”

Behaviors of Vortex Wake in Random Atmospheric Turbulence

“…The drawback of the current probabilistic models, such as P2P [7][8][9] and other probabilistic analysis models [13], is that they are actually based on deterministic models, along with the statistics of measured data. In these models, the background turbulence is only represented by the measured eddy-dissipation rate (EDR) in the circulation decay model.…”