This is an earlier experiment. Read the amendments below before treating its findings as current.
The question
Calm lanes delivered barely half the laps they would with no traffic. Is traffic piling up at crossings or lane ends?
What was tested
Every craft's position, speed and heading every 5 s (about a million samples) on 1,200- and 600-craft grids in calm and 1–5 m/s wind, plus the calm 1,200-craft grid for all four craft types.
What was found then
No slowdown at crossings or lane ends met the mark set in advance. The whole lane crawls: wing craft fly at 71–75 % of cruising speed, headings spread 36–53° (standard deviation), a weave rather than a lean. About a third sit at minimum airspeed. At 600 craft lanes crawl the same way. In 1–2 m/s wind the spread starts falling, and speed recovers by 3 m/s. The ideal craft (instant response), multirotor and eVTOL weave less (23–31°). Read then as the rules causing the crawl, worst for the wing.
What we learned later
Narrowed: the pooled measurements rule out only the places named in advance, not short-lived queues or local bunching.
research/envelope.md:5614
A sign error in removing the wind from the headings was fixed; the wind figures here are corrected. A claim that one lane direction straightens first and the other only at the wind where close calls drop sharply was withdrawn.
research/envelope.md:5561
Narrowed: about half of the ideal craft's spread comes from a slow minority; its fast-flying craft spread 13.5–15.4°, right at the 15° mark for 'orderly'. At 600 craft only the wing was flown.
research/envelope.md:5451; research/envelope.md:5516
What changed
Nothing.
Numbers and source references
- 5 s
- recording intervalresearch/envelope.md:5614
- about a million
- position samples recordedresearch/envelope.md:5614
- 600 / 1,200
- fleet sizes recordedresearch/envelope.md:5561
- 1 / 2 / 3 / 5 m/s
- wind settings recordedresearch/envelope.md:5561
- 71–75 %
- wing air speed as a share of cruise in calmresearch/envelope.md:5614
- 36–53°
- within-instant heading standard deviation of calm wing lanesresearch/envelope.md:5561
- a third (29–42 %)
- share of wing samples at the minimum airspeed in calmresearch/envelope.md:5561
- 23–31°
- heading spread of ideal, multirotor and eVTOL lanesresearch/envelope.md:5516