TsAGI scientists discuss increase of aerodrome handling capacity
15 February 2018
One of the priorities of the global aviation community is the increase of aerodrome handling capacity by means of takeoff and landing operations. ICAO (The International Civil Aviation Organization) and EUROCONTROL (European Organization for the safety of air navigation) recently held a seminar on this topic. TsAGI and the Committee on International Cooperation in Development and Implementation of Systems and Facilities of Aeronavigation of the Union of Aviation Industrialists of Russia came forward with an initiative to arrange the event. The seminar took place in Neuilly-sur-Seine (France) in January of this year.
Meeting participants discussed the issue of increased capacity in aerodrome handling by using the aircraft trailing vortex. At the moment, according to regulations, takeoff and landing operation frequency is limited by the distance that must be kept between flying aircraft to avoid the trailing-vortex hazard. At the seminar, representatives of EUROCONTROL discussed the possibility to revise the existing safety distances. The RECAT project will revise aircraft by class. It is proposed to have not only weight separation (as is currently the case), but by wing spread separation as well. As a result, the minimum safety distances between some pairs of aircraft will be reduced.
“The proposed RECAT algorithm covers existing classes of aircraft,” said Igor Bosnyakov, TsAGI Head of Section of Department of aerodynamics and aircraft missiles, who took part in the event. “But some aircraft fall on the border of the categories because of the great diversity of type and modifications. A special mechanism should be designed and verified for such aircraft to range them in a class by vortex safety. And this is a promising area of activity for our Institute inasmuch as TsAGI has the knowledge and experience in researching the mechanics of the formation and potential destruction of vortex dynamics, as well as airplane dynamics in a trailing vortex.”
The involvement of the Institute and other Russian aviation industry organizations into research in this area was also the subject of the discussion. In addition, TsAGI and DLR (Germany) scientists held negotiations on trailing vortex joint work shortly before the seminar.
According to experts of the Russian Center for aeronautical science, the event demonstrated the relevance of the trailing vortex issue, and its significance increases due to the increase of air traffic.
The Federal State Unitary Enterprise “State ATM Corporation,” JSC "Azimut, and “JSC “International Aero Navigation Systems Concern” (IANS) supported TsAGI’s initiative from the Russian side and took part in the event.