Question to Mxmanic

mike regish writes:

A sign of a well executed 360 is to encounter your own wake turbulence,
although the vortex generally sinks some in the intervening time and the
turbulence is usually no more than a slight bump.

From my back-of-envelope calculations, if it's a two-minute turn, the downwash
and vortices would have descended by some 2000 feet or so by the time you
close the circle (depending on various factors). I'm surprised that there
would be anything to feel if you are maintaining the same altitude, which is
why I didn't consider this. However, if it has actually happened to you, I'll
have to review my calculations.

Anyway, while it might be interesting in real life, it would be horrifically
CPU-intensive to simulate, since it would require modeling of large chunks of
air away from the aircraft, which is as compute-bound as weather reporting.

Indeed, modeling any sort of wake turbulence would be this way, unless the
simulation were canned and provided as a couple of fixed scenarios that
wouldn't require calculation of air movements. But then you have to wonder if
it would be worthwhile, either, since it's a really bad idea to fly through
another aircraft's wake turbulence. If it's mild there's not much to
simulate; if it's heavy it's too dangerous to approach.

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