A few weeks ago a friend of mine asked me why heavy is added to an aircraft’s callsign so I thought for todays blog I’d write a little bit about why this is.
It’s all to do with wake turbulence. Aircraft are split into 4 categories of wake turbulence and are defined by the Civil Aviation Organisation.
Light, Medium, Heavy & Super. In this instance we are talking heavy. So, all aircraft types that are 136’000kg excluding the A380 which comes under the Super category must append heavy to their callsign.
What is wake turbulence?
Information from the Federal Aviation Administration. Wake turbulence is a function of an aircraft producing lift, resulting in the formation of two counter-rotating vortices trailing behind the aircraft.
Gareth Edwards
Gareth is one of the founders and owners of final approach. Gareth covers many of the airports across the North west including Manchester, Liverpool & Hawarden. Gareth is the main designer of the website.
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