Aircraft Wake Turbulence And Its Detection

The combination of increasing airport congestion and the ad vent of large transports has caused increased interest in aircraft wake turbulence. A quantitative understanding of the interaction between an aircraft and the vortex wake of a preceding aircraft is necessary for planning future high density air traffic patterns and control systems. The nature of the interaction depends on both the characteristics of the following aircraft and the characteristics of the wake. Some of the questions to be answered are: What deter mines the full characteristics of the vortex wake? What properties of the following aircraft are important? What is the role of pilot response? How are the wake characteristics related to the genera ting aircraft parameters? How does the wake disintegrate and where? Many of these questions were addressed at this first Aircraft Wake Turbulence Symposium sponsored by the Air Force Office of Sci entific Research and The Boeing Company. Workers engaged in aero dynamic research, airport operations, and instrument development came from several count ries to present their results and exchange information. The new results from the meeting provide a current picture of the state of the knowledge on vortex wakes and their interactions with other aircraft. Phenomena previously regarded as mere curiosities have emerged as important tools for understanding or controlling vortex wakes. The new types of instability occurring within the wake may one day be used for promoting early dis integration of the hazardous twin vortex structure.

The investigation deals with the dynamic behavior of an airplane encountering aircraft wake turbulence. A digital computer simulation was developed to study the response of an aircraft flying into a trailing vortex wake. The simulation includes the complete six degree of freedom equations of motion, a description of the vortex velocity field, unsteady aerodynamics, and pilot control input. The parameters included the penetration angle, separation distance, aircraft size, and pilot control input. Predicted vortex induced motions are presented for general aviation, business, and light jet transport type aircraft.

Without major changes, the current air transportation system will be unable to accommodate the expected increase in demand by 2025. One proposal to address this problem is to use the Global Positioning System to enable aircraft to fly more closely spaced. This approach, however, might be limited by the wake turbulence problem, which can be a safety hazard when smaller aircraft follow relatively larger aircraft too closely. To examine how this potential hazard might be reduced, Congress in 2005 directed NASA to request a study from the NRC to assess the federal wake turbulence R&D program. This book provides a description of the problem, an assessment of the organizational challenges to addressing wake turbulence, an analysis of the technical challenges in wake turbulence, and a proposal for a wake turbulence program plan. A series of recommendations for addressing the wake turbulence challenge are also given.

The book is a concise guide dealing with the subject of air turbulence and its methods of detection with particular applications to aviation turbulence. It begins with a general description of turbulence and provides a background into the nature and causes of atmospheric turbulence that affect aircraft motion, giving updates on the state-of-the-art research on clear air turbulence (CAT). Important physical processes leading to the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, a primary producer of CAT, are also explained. The several categories of CAT along with its impact on commercial aviation are also presented in a separate chapter, with particular emphasis on the structural damages to planes and injuries. The central theme of the book deals with both the earlier and the latest CAT detecting methods and techniques for remote and in situ sensing and forecasting. A concise presentation of new technologies for reducing aviation weather-related accidents is also offered. A chapter on the weather accident prevention project of the NASA aviation safety program is also included. Additionally, the book ends with a full description of the recent research activities on CAT and future challenges in turbulence detection, prediction and avoidance.