EUROCONTROL is a pan-European, civil-military organisation dedicated to supporting European aviation.

“Tailoring wake separation for departures based on aircraft type, not wake category, is a promising concept that we’ve recently been simulating to improve runway throughput at capacity-constrained airports.

Our Innovation Hub team has been busy with partners running flight simulations between September 2021 and January 2022 at the AMST-Aviation B.V. facilities in Amsterdam and Aviation Academy Austria in Vienna to assess the wake severity impact of the Static Pairwise Wake Separation for Departures (S-PWS-D) scheme, a concept developed in SESAR 3 Joint Undertaking Wave 2 PJ.02 project.

By tailoring wake separations to the lead and follower aircraft types, it’s possible to reduce wake separations for the majority of aircraft pairs. That will lead to gains in runway throughput in airports that are capacity-constrained during peak periods – and not only maintains but also enhances safety, as some separations will increase.

These are the last in a series of validation activities designed to complete the safety case for S-PWS-D; in parallel, we are working with NATS to finalise the safety case, which will support regulatory approval and facilitate deployment.” said Eurocontrol.

For more information, kindly contact Eurocontrol.

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