The motion of the pair of trailing vortices generated by an aircraft is not well described by simple line vortex theory in the presence of a cross wind near the ground. Experimental observations indicate that the up-wind vortex usually drops to a lower altitude than the down-wind vortex. Figure 1 shows a photograph of this phenomenon where the vortex locations are marked by smoke from a tower. Figure 2 shows typical vortex tranjectorics measured with a pulsed acoustic ranging system developed at this center.
A wake vortex transport model has been developed which includes the effects of wind and windshear, buoyancy, mutual and self-induction, ground plane i...
Although wake vortices are known to decay more rapidly near the ground than away from the ground, the details of the ground interaction are not well u...
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