Flight Safety Technologies to Demonstrate Its Wake Predictive System

Flight Safety Technologies plans to show a "canned emulation" of its Aircraft Wake Safety Management (AWSM) in early 2007, based on aircraft arrival data recorded in earlier tests.  A beta-site development at Denver's international airport could follow later in the same year.

AWSM uses an integrated combination of weather and aircraft surveillance sensors, wake-vortex sensors, and prediction algorithms to confirm whether vortex spacing needs to be applied, or regular minimum spacing between aircraft can be used on departures and arrivals. The system also can be used to estimate the amount of time before favorable meteorological conditions are likely to change.

William B. Cotton, Flight Safety Technologies' president, notes that current procedures result in costly delays because vortex behavior isn't currently monitored or predicted, which requires greater-than-normal spacing around airports to protect against wake turbulence that frequently is not dangerous due to its natural dispersion and decay.

AMSM uses its own SOCRATES opto-acoustic monitoring sensor and LIDAR (laser, or light, imaging detection and ranging) to determine in real time whether conditions are such that vortices are a threat.  SOCRATES uses lasers to measure and track the sound generated by the vortices, while LIDAR records the motion of particles that backscatter the light, thereby directly measuring the velocity field.

NASA has sponsored studies showing that a system like AWSM can generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually in cost savings due to reduced delays, when deployed generally. "Considering the increasing mix of super-heavy and very light aircraft, the economic impact of such a system could eventually surpass a billion dollars annually," Mr. Cotton said.  12-16-2006.

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