The first project that caught my attention this year is called CREDOS: Crosswind-reduced Separations for Departure Operations. CREDOS is part of the Sixth Framework Programme of the European Commission and aims at increasing airport capacity by reducing current separation minima while maintaining safety levels.
ICAO separation standards for landing and take-off were implemented in the 1970s to protect an aircraft from the wake turbulence of a preceding aircraft. In recent years, research has shown that the transport and persistence of wake vortices are highly dependent on meteorological conditions, so that in many cases the standards are over-conservative. By developing a full understanding of wake vortex behaviour in all weather categories separations could be reduced under certain suitable conditions. CREDOS will focus on crosswind conditions during departure operations and will study the feasibility of the approach to reduce departure separations.
The results of measurement campaigns at Frankfurt (EDDF) and St. Louis (KSTL) airport will be used for developing models of wake vortex behaviour. Risk assessment will determine both likelihood and severity of hazards in order to determine safe separations under various crosswind conditions. Building on this work an operational concept for crosswind departures will be developed and validated.
Eurocontrol is the project leader of a consortium of eleven research partners. NLR is part of the project team and will be involved in all research activities. Obviously, validation of the operational concept will be one of the major items for our ATM & Airports team and will result in human-in-the-loop real-time simulations. In these simulations an assessment of the HMI, controller working procedures and the controller workload will be made.
