This is an earlier experiment. Read the amendments below before treating its findings as current.
The question
A close call means a craft inside another's required spacing. Earlier work counted only the closest pair. How much close-call time do gusts add per craft?
What was tested
A recorder that leaves flight unchanged logged each craft's closest approach while the previous step's 144 half-hour runs were re-flown: the wing and the ideal craft (instant response), in steady or gusty wind of 6–7.5 m/s.
What was found then
Close calls come in groups: 6.3–7.0 craft at once on average, read then as about three pairs. Only about 2 % of close-call time is very close (under half the spacing). Gusts add about 80–120 craft-seconds per run, beyond luck at one wind of three, and at all three after the fifth minute. No extra very-close time was seen. The wing lost 98–120 craft per 12 runs at every wind: collisions, which close-call time does not explain.
What we learned later
Narrowed: the 6–7 figure is the average number of craft in close calls at once and does not show three pairs. 'No extra very-close time' means none could be detected; up to 40 % more was still possible at 7.5 m/s. Whether gusty and steady runs differ in losses was never tested.
research/envelope.md:2455; research/reviews/researcher-c70.md
What changed
Nothing. A recording switch was added; it is off by default, and runs are identical with it off.
Numbers and source references
- 144
- runs re-flown with the recorder onresearch/envelope.md:2455
- 6 / 6.5 / 7.5 m/s
- wind settingsresearch/envelope.md:2455
- 12
- random starts (seed offsets) per armresearch/envelope.md:2455
- half-hour (1,800 s)
- run lengthresearch/envelope.md:2455
- 6.3–7.0
- craft-seconds in breach per second of any fleet breach (steady wing)research/envelope.md:2455
- about three pairs
- the cycle's own reading of that ratioresearch/reviews/researcher-c70.md
- 2 %
- share of the wing's breach time closer than half the required separation (2.3 %)research/envelope.md:2455
- 80–120
- extra craft-seconds in breach per run from the default gustresearch/envelope.md:2455
- 1 of 3
- winds at which the whole-run excess was resolvedresearch/envelope.md:2455
- fifth minute (300 s)
- after this the excess was resolved at all three windsresearch/envelope.md:2455
- 98–120
- wing craft lost per 12 runs at each wind armresearch/envelope.md:2455