7.12 NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF AIRCRAFT TRAILING VORTICES.pdf

NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF AIRCRAFT TRAILING VORTICES Fred H. Proctor NASA Langley Research Center Hampton Virginia 23681-2199 and George F. Switzer Research Triangle Institute Hampton, Virginia 23666 Paper: 7.12, pages 511-516 Preprints of 9 th Conference on Aviation, Range and Aerospace Meteorology 11-15 September 2000, Orlando Florida American Meteorology Society (Correction to Fig. 3 added Nov 1, 2000) 511 7.12 NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF AIRCRAFT TRAILING VORTICES Fred H. Proctor * NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton Virginia and George F. Switzer Research Triangle Institute, Hampton, Virginia * Corresponding author address: Fred H. Proctor, Airborne Systems Competency, NASA Langley Research Center, MS 156A, Hampton VA 23681-2199, email: f.h.proctor@larc.nasa.gov 1. INTRODUCTION The increase in air traffic is currently outpacing the development of new airport runways. This is leading to greater air traffic congestion, resulting in costly delays and cancellations. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under its Terminal Area Productivity (TAP) program is investigating new technologies that will allow increased airport capacity while maintaining the present standards for safety (Hinton 1995, Perry et al 1997). As an element of this program, the Aircraft Vortex Spacing System (AVOSS) is being demonstrated in July 2000, at Dallas Ft-Worth Airport (Hinton et al 2000). This system allows reduced aircraft separations, thus increasing the arrival and departure rates, while insuring that wake vortices from a leading aircraft do not endanger trailing aircraft. The system uses predictions of wake vortex position and strength based on input from the current weather state. This prediction is accomplished by a semi-empirical model developed from theory, field observations, and rela