heavy

A crew says "heavy" after the callsign so every controller and every other aircraft on frequency knows how much separation this one needs behind it. The Airbus A380 has its own category above it, "super". Spotters borrow the word loosely for any widebody, which is not quite what it means.

This term does not auto-link inside captions: "heavy" is ordinary English at least as often as it is a wake category, and linking "heavy rain all morning" to a weight class would be confidently wrong.

Nearby in Aviation

• hangar — A building for storing and maintaining aircraft.
• headwind — A wind blowing along the runway towards the aircraft, which shortens the takeoff and landing distance needed.
• hold short — An instruction to stop before a runway or other boundary and wait.
• holding pattern — A published racetrack circuit an aircraft flies to wait, usually for its turn to approach.