The wake vortex prediction and monitoring system WSVBS Part II: Performance and ATC integration at Frankfurt airport

Abstract

The performance and ATC integration of DLR’s wake vortex advisory system “WSVBS” (Wirbelschleppen-Vorhersage- und -Beobachtungssystem) for the dependent parallel runway system 25L and 25R at Frankfurt Airport are described. WSVBS has compo-nents to forecast and monitor the local weather and to predict and monitor wake trans-port and decay along the glide paths. It is integrated in the arrival manager AMAN of DLR. Each 10 minutes it delivers minimum safe aircraft separation times for the next hour to air traffic control. These times are translated into operational modes for runways 25L/R aiming at improving the capacity. From 66 days of a performance test at Frank-furt it was found that the system ran stable and the predicted minimum separation times were safe. The capacity improving concepts of operation could have been used in 75% of the time and continuously applied for at least several tens of minutes. From fast-time simulations the eventual capacity gain for Frankfurt was estimated to be 3% taking into account the real traffic mix and operational constraints in the period of one month.