Flight Safety Technology Says Its New System Can Help Avoid Wake Turbulence

by Aero-News Senior Editor Pete Combs

It happened to me on a short hop from Oklahoma City to Tulsa. I had just ferried an aircraft broker (who will, for obvious reasons, remain nameless) in my Grumman AA5-B to an airport in OKC so he could pick up a twin Cessna. On the way back, he thought it would be real funny to buzz my little single-engine aircraft with his much heavier C402. The wake turbulence almost killed me and my passenger.

It was as if the hand of God had grabbed my left wing and pushed DOWN. I later learned it would have been smarter to roll the Tiger than fight the vortex formed by the close-passing Cessna's wings. I have to admit, there was a period of about ten seconds when I thought I was going to lose it right there over the Turner Turnpike.

Wake vortices are blamed for dozens of accidents involving both general aviation and commercial aircraft. One of the most notable aircraft tragedies in recent years -- American Airlines Flight 587 that went down over Queens, NY, four years ago -- was partially caused by the wake turbulence of a nearby Boeing 747. But if William Cotton has anything to do with it, wake turbulence mishaps on the runway could soon become a thing of the past.

Cotton is head of Flight Safety Technology. In Denver, Friday, he demonstrated his "laser listening system," Socrates, now being tested at Denver International Airport.

The system "hears" a vortex, painting it as a brilliant burst of light on the computer screen. As time passes, the vortices drift away from the runway, carried by the wind and slowly dissipating as they move along.

But because they're invisible and because so little is known about them, the standard interval for wake turbulence avoidance on take-off is two minutes. Cotton figures his system could dramatically shorten that interval to just a few seconds under the right conditions.

Cotton says it would cost about $10 million to install his equipment at an airport. But at fields like DFW, he says the equipment could allow a six-percent increase in the number of runway operations every day. That, he says, is real money over the long haul.

NASA calls the technology "promising."

Thinking back to that wildman aircraft broker who buzzed me in the C402, I'm wondering now if Cotton might come up with a butthead avoidance system. We'll get back to you on that...

FMI: www.flysafetech.com