Volpe Center: Wake Vortex Program

Aircraft Wake Vortices: An Annotated Bibliography

Preface

Like many modern ideas, the earliest known reference to wake vortices appeared in one of the many notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. After the great Leonardo, little was published until Lord Rayleigh described his "vortexes." However, modern aircraft wake vortex history began with the futile attempts by Lanchester to publish his work in a journal. Fortunately, the material eventually appeared in his book Aerodynamics; one of his figures is still used today.

To make the task of compiling a bibliography a finite one, certain material was not included. To be considered for this document the publication had to possess a possible implication in the setting of separation standards in the Air Traffic Control System. The bibliography includes basic theoretical and experimental work which describes the nature of a vortex (its growth, decay, structure, formation, etc.), the effects of vortices on other aircraft, and the various means to avoid or to alleviate the severity of a vortex encounter. The subject of helicopter vortices has already been summarized in bibliography form ("A Summary of Helicopter Vorticity and Wake Turbulence Publications With an Annotated Bibliography," J.J. Shrager, FAA-RD-74-48, May 1974; "Rotorcraft Wakes - An Annotated Bibliography," J.N. Hallock, FA-427-PM-84, Feb. 1986) and is therefore not included herein except for articles dealing with separation standards. Leading edge or delta wing vortices were excluded except for a few publications which contain relevant theory on vortex decay.

The references are given in the form used by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Since material often appeared in more than one publication (such as first in an AIAA paper, then in one of their archival journals), the more accessible source (usually the refereed journal article) was used in this report. The bibliography is arranged alphabetically by the name(s) of the author(s) and then by month/year of publication. The nucleus of the bibliography was the 1990 report by the author ("Aircraft Wake Vortices - An Annotated Bibliography (1923 - 1990), "DOT-FAA-RD-90-30, June 1991), which is superseded by this web site.

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