As an unavoidable consequence of lift aircraft generate a
pair of counter-rotating and long-lived wake vortices that
pose a potential risk to following aircraft. The prescribed
aircraft separations during landing to avoid wake vortex
hazards contribute significantly to capacity restrictions
of large airports. Severe encounters of wake vortices have
also been reported during cruise. Wake vortex behavior is
largely controlled by the prevailing meteorological conditions
and the interaction with the ground. The most
important meteorological parameters are ambient wind,
wind shear, turbulence, and temperature stratification.
The Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)
develops wake vortex advisory systems for airports and
en route which aim at optimizing the air traffic with
respect to the measured and predicted wake vortex behavior.
As part of such systems simple probabilistic wake
vortex prediction models are required that predict wake
vortex behavior accurately, robust, and fast. Highly resolving
large eddy simulations (LES) conducted on the
SuperMUC supercomputer provide valuable insights in
the physics of wake vortex behavior under various atmospheric
conditions. These LES contribute indispensable
guidance for the development of the real-time/fasttime
wake vortex models
