Wake RECAT Development Experience

22 May 2018

Presented by
Jeffrey Tittsworth and Paul Strande
Federal Aviation Administration

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 RECAT Agenda
• Origins and Motivations for RECAT
• Reasons for Successful Regulator Approval
• FAA Decision to Implement prior to ICAO Acceptance
• Safety Case Discussion
 Development of safe wake turbulence separations
 Development of Wake Categories
• “Integrated Product Team” approach used for Implementation
 Automation
 Procedures
 Controller Training and Pilot Education
 Safety Monitoring and other post implementation feedback
• Observations at MEM, SDF and ATL on operational impacts (ground and air)
 First week
 First 6 months
 1 year

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 Origins of RECAT
• In 2000 the assessment of acceptably safe wake separations for Airbus A388 began
 Under the auspices of ICAO
 Jointly by FAA, EUROCNTROL and then European Regulator JAA
• ICAO Noted 17 ANSPs with Filed Exceptions to ICAO 3 category system: Heavy, Medium
and Light, driven by
 Operational need based on fleet mix changes since ICAO 3 category system was developed
 Observed wake encounter risk
• ICAO asked if A388 effort could be expanded to include a reassessment of weight categories
to address new fleet mixes and a data driven wake encounter risk assessment
• In 2004 an International Recategorization effort began
• As the work progressed, FAA provided progress updates through Wakenet meetings
 Pilot and ATC labor groups
 Airlines (passenger and cargo)
 Manufacturers

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 Motivations for RECAT
• Fleet mix changes
 1990s move toward RJ and turboprop aircraft was changing to larger single aisle aircraft
 Growth in size of Heavy aircraft

• Capacity Constrained airports

• Limited real estate for new runways

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Current ICAO Wake Turbulence Separations
Heavy to Heavy
Leading aircraft Trailing aircraft

B747 A306 This is Safe

4 NM
Separation
This is Overly
Conservative.

A306 B747
A result of the Breadth
of the Heavy Category

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Safety Example Wake Turbulence Separations
Upper Heavy to Lower Heavy
Leading aircraft Trailing aircraft
4 NM
Separation
This Is Safe (Current ICAO)
B747
A306

Lower Heavy to Upper Heavy

2.5 NM
Separation

A306 B747 This Is Also Safe (RECAT)

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 Conditions That Allowed Our Regulator to Consider
Our Safety Case
• Historically only a 3 NM radar separation was used between aircraft (collision risk
analysis led to the value of 3 NM)
• When larger aircraft entered into service and operated in close proximity to smaller
aircraft, wake encounter events began to occur
• Wake science was helpful but did not fully inform about the level of risk in the actual
operational environment
• In the early 1990’s Sonic Anemometers fielded at airports (e.g. JFK, SFO) allowed
for some good measurements of wake turbulence in an operational environment
• In 2001, Lidar technology advanced sufficiently to field a research sensor that
 Operates in a stand alone configuration
 Measures wake strength and location as a function of time (or in trail distance)
 Makes those measurements 24/7/365 except in poor visibility conditions
• FAA Regulator prefers data driven safety assessments over findings from laboratory
environment or subject matter expertise

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 SFO Site Layout
NGE (Above One
Wingspan) Heavy
Departures off 28s

OGE Arrivals off

28s

NGE (One
Wingspan
Heavy) 8
Arrivals off 28s
May 2011 FAA/EUROCONTROL Joint Safety Case

•
Submitted to ICAO Wake Turbulence Study
Group for Review and Discussion
• Publicly Available

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Methodology Report Highlights

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Resulting Separations

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Wingspan (ft) Wingspan (ft) 250

300

100
150
200
250
100
150
200

300

50
50

0
0
A388 A388
B744 B744
A346 A346
B772 B772
B773 B773
A332 A332
A333 A333
A343 A343
MD11 MD11
B763 B763
A306 A306
B752 B752
B753 B753
B736 B736
B737 B737
B738 B738
B739 B739
A318 A318
A319 A319
A320 A320
A321 A321
B722 B722
MD82 MD82
MD83 MD83
F50 F50
B733 B733
B734 B734
B735 B735
RECAT Categories

E190 E190
GLF5 GLF5
B712 B712
DC93 DC93
Current U.S. Classes

DC95 DC95
DH8D DH8D
F100 F100
F70 F70
DH8C DH8C
AT72 AT72
RJ1H RJ1H
RJ85 RJ85
B462 B462
B463 B463
E170 E170
Aircraft Type (Decreasing Wingspan )

DH8A DH8A
DH8B DH8B
CRJ9 CRJ9
AT45 AT45
AT43 AT43
GLF4 GLF4
CRJ7 CRJ7
SF34 SF34
CRJ1 CRJ1
CRJ2 CRJ2
E45X E45X
E145 E145
E135 E135
E120 E120
B190 B190
C650 C650
H25B H25B
C525 C525
Small
Large

CatF
CatE
Super

CatC
CatB
CatA

CatD
Heavy
of US and European Operations
Aircraft Assignments Under Current US Weight
Classes and Under Recategorization Phase I and 1.5

61 Aircraft Types Making Up 85%

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 Flow Chart for Categorization
(Guidance – Not a Rule or Recipe)

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 ICAO Dec 2011

• Europe decided to optimize a version of RECAT for their fleet mix

• All RECAT documentation was left with ICAO WTSG
• FAA pursued implementation of the jointly developed proposal
and did not re-optimize for US fleet mix until RECAT Phase II
• Safety Case documentation became basis for FAA internal safety
documentation in the form of a Safety Rick Management
Document (SRMD)

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 FAA Implementation Decisions

• FedEx, UAL and other users had been vocal stakeholders in

support of the wake program
• They also participated in SRM panels required for the completion
of the SRMD
• In February 2012 FedEx asked the FAA Administrator for
 MEM to be the first implementation site, and
 Implementation to be completed by November 1 2012 (start of busy
season for FedEx and other package delivery companies)
• Administrator set the implementation date as an agency goal

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 Importance of Agency Goal
• FAA is like all large organizations, with various underlying organizations
having different responsibilities, priorities and timelines
• Setting RECAT at MEM as an agency goal had the affect of creating an
integrated product team
 Was not a formal structure: people were still assigned to their home organizations
 Allowed otherwise separate organizations to now working with same timeline towards
same goal
 Each organization having to answer to the Administrator about their progress toward the
common goal
 Key Customer (FedEx) was a true partner working with
• Automation, Safety,
• Training, Procedures, National Labor and
• Labor and Management from both the ATCT and TRACON facilities

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 Automation
• Radar and flight data processor, STARS, required modification
 RECAT was a transition from 5 weight class system to 6 wake categories
• From: A388, Heavy, B757, Large, and Small
• To: Super, Upper Heavy, Lower Heavy, Upper Large, Lower Large, and Small
 Additional complexity for controller was mitigated through
• Mandatory presentation of RECAT category on the data blocks
• Availability of Automated Terminal Proximity Alert (ATPA) (shown later)
• Flexibility of STARS allowed for use of ‘rule changes’ to accomplish the
required modifications in time
 Think of rule changes as something slightly more complicated than changing adaptation
data but short of software changes
 Job Control Language is similar kind of capability
• Software changes were eventually done and required about 12 months to
accomplish

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18
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Automated Terminal Proximity Alert Monitor Cones
(Supports RECAT, Not Required for RECAT, but RECAT is a Better
Product with ATPA)

All changes were made and tested jointly by labor, management,ATC

requirements experts, people responsible for developing training material, and
software and safety engineers
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 Communication To Pilot Community/Users

• Overall education on wake turbulence and best practices through

 Aeronautical Information Manual
 FAA Advisory Circular On Wake Turbulence (AC 90-23g)
• National notification of the RECAT program Phase
 Safety Alert for Operators (SAFO)
 Airline Pilots Association (ALPA) News Articles
• Notification of specific airport/TRACON implementation of RECAT
 Letter to Airmen (LTA)
 Pilot Familiarization Briefings

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 Effects at Memphis

• MEM is busy overnight with FedEx cargo

• MEM is not capacity constrained during the day
• More than 60% of FedEx fleet mix is lower Heavy (e.g., B767,
MD11, A300)
• Most of the separation reduction from RECAT is behind lower
Heavy aircraft
• 20% or more capacity gain realized at MEM from RECAT
 Some throughput gains seen immediately
 Some took more than 9 months to realize

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 FedEx Operations
• No downstream constraints exist for departures
 Same runway separation is the limiting factor in departure throughput
 Immediate benefit realized within 1st week of operations
• Immediate benefit was shorter flight time in TRACON airspace
 Shorter final approach
 More direct routing to final approach
 But no increase in arrival rates
• Within first week of operations, MEM eliminated MIT programs
 Still no increase in arrival rates
• 4 corner post system was determined to be the upstream constraint
• Within 9 months, 4 additional arrival gates were designed in the airspace
 Arrival rate increased
 Called rates increased shortly after

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 Observations from Other Implementations
• SDF
 Required software change
• Older terminal automation system running there at that time (CARTS)
• 10 months for software changes, testing and implementation
 Showed similar benefits compared to MEM
• Similar fleet mix to MEM
• UPS hub
• Early morning operations
• ATL was first major passenger airport to implement RECAT
 Fleet mix was significantly different
 Resulted in an 8-10% capacity increase
 Traffic pushes distributed throughout 16 hour operational day
 Financial savings similar to FedEx at MEM
• FedEx reports $1.8M saved per month
• Delta reports $16-32M saved per year at ATL due to RECAT
• All implementations reported departure benefits first
• Arrival benefits realized over longer time
• Some of that has to do with US use of visual approaches 80-90% of the time

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