The theory of acoustic‐ray bending by aircraft‐generated vortices is developed in a form convenient for application to a practical vortex tracking system. The maximum scattering angle ϑmis proportional to the vortex circulation divided by the average core radius. Since the circulation for commercial jet transports is roughly proportional to the wingspan, the value of ϑmdepends little on aircraft size but strongly on the ratio of the core size to the wingspan. For landing aircraft ϑmvaries from 0.5 to 1.4 rad depending upon the engine placement. A variety of vortex core models are considered which lead to values of ϑmbetween 0.2 and 0.9 rad. The capabilities of a pulsed acoustic vortex tracking system depend strongly upon ϑmand therefore upon aircraft type. The effects of timing errors, both vortex induced and random, on tracking accuracy are derived. The fundamental differences between refractive scattering and turbulence scattering techniques are described.