When an aircraft flies at high angles of attack, the airflow over the wing can become detached, or it stops following the shape of the wing. When this happens, the lift produced by the wing will suddenly and rapidly decrease, and the wing is said to be stalled . When the flow separates from the wing, it usually means the air is moving too slowly, or there isn't enough energy in the flow to keep it moving. Since vortices are energetic, they can be used to put energy back into the flow to keep it moving in the desired direction. This is what vortex generators are designed to do.
Vortex generators are simply small rectangular plates that jut above the wing surface.
They look like tiny little wings jutting up perpendicular to the wing itself. As air moves past them, vortices are created off the tips of the generators just like the trailing vortices mentioned earlier. These vortices interact with the rest of the air moving over the wing to speed it up and help reduce the possibility of separation. The Buccaneer and Javelin are good examples of such aircraft. The Buccanner utilizes one set of generators along the leading edge of the outer portion of the wing.