Research on the Methods of Aircraft Re-categorization Based on China Typical Airport Operation Conditions

The current wake turbulence separation standard given in ICAO DOC4444 was formed many years ago, and it limits the airport capacity while ensuring safety. By analyzing the current RECAT separation standards in Europe and the United States, based on the knowledge of wake vortex behavior together with lots of measured data, the methods of aircraft categories classification were studied systematically, and the parameters termed as the initial circulation, dimensionless relative circulation, the induced rolling moment coefficient and the Required Actual Roll Rate (RARR) were given to consider the severity and safety of wake vortex encountering. Then a new standard named RECAT-CN is proposed by the authors to obtain more balanced and reasonable results in safety domain.