Current wake vortex separation minima are a major impediment to increasing traffic capacity since they require greater separations than radar separation minima. The concept of dynamic wake vortex separation, which allows reduced separations in favorable weather conditions when wake durations on flight paths become shorter, would allow an increase in capacity. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has developed a methodology that calculates a reduced wake vortex separation that is equally safe as current separation minima. The methodology uses a probabilistic wake vortex prediction model to probabilistically assure that the wake vortex encounter risks at reduced separations do not exceed those at current separation minima. JAXA has also developed an airport terminal traffic simulation environment to demonstrate the traffic capacity gain at a congested airport when dynamic wake vortex separations are introduced and take-off/landing sequences are optimized. The simulation result showed a greater than 10% capacity gain, and confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.
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