An experimental investigation was undertaken of the wake aerodynamics of a 1/12.81 model of a commercial passenger aircraft. The tests were undertaken in the 3.05 m by 3.66 m working section of a closed-return wind-tunnel. The program made use of laser sheet visualization (LSV) and particle image velocimetry (PIV) in planes, normal to the mean flow, to obtain images of flow-following, seed particles. The images were processed to obtain raw velocity vectors, flow divergence, vorticity, crossflow energy and high quality visualizations. Image sequences obtained under identical incident flow conditions were used to conceptualize the variability of principal wake features, such as regions of fluid of high vorticity.