Wake Turbulence and Jimmy Carter

James Fallows’ absence is still providing interest over at his blog. You’ll have to go there and read “NASA's Iconic Red Vortex Photo: 'The Rest of the Story'” to figure out what Jimmy Carter has to do with wake turbulence.

I thought I’d just point out that other people “get it”.

”Because we see computer images on TV of airplanes the size of counties flying over a map of the U.S., we come to think of the airspace as crowded. In reality, the airspace is not crowded. Instead, the runways and the arrival queue of airplanes lined up to land are crowded. The airplanes are spaced in the queue that keeps each safely following an airplane away from the spinning wake vortex of the previous airplane.”

Even better, the writer -- Bruce J. Holmes -- is involved in NextGen. So, at least someone operating at the higher (than me) levels understands that “It’s the Runways, Stupid”.

Don Brown
February 4, 2011