Wake Vortices
All aircraft generate wake vortices, also known as wake turbulence, which continue to be evident far behind the generating aircraft. Another aircraft crossing this wake may feel a sharp and brief turbulence which can be strong under some circumstances. Let’s review the specific characteristics of wake vortices’ and how pilots should react in case of an encounter to ensure the safety of the flight.
High-altitude manual flying
Flying an aircraft manually at high altitudes, and therefore necessarily at high Mach number, is a completely different discipline to what it may be like at low altitudes. As it turns out, opportunities to experience manual flying at high altitudes are rare in a pilot’s career. Yet, regulations do require it in certain circumstances, such as when the Auto Pilot is unavailable.
Airbus Brake Testing
Regulatory aircraft performance is certified as a set of performance models and aircraft physical characteristics that are built and validated from flight test data. While the primary purpose of these models has always been to allow computation of aircraft performance for dispatch, the models used to determine the in-flight landing distances during approach preparation are derived from the same testing. Part of this model, affecting both the accelerate-stop computation at take-off and the landing distance computation, are the characteristics of the braking system installed on the aircraft.This article explains which flight tests are involved in the identification of the system characteristics and how they are conducted.