A Tale of Two Takeoffs

At a flyi that included various flying and landing contests, I was helping with the release of helium balloons for the pilots to try and pop. Harder than some would imagine, as there were a lot more misses than hits (except for ace pilots such as myself). Several of the missed balloons got sucked into the wing tip vortices where they almost stayed in place while rotating at least several hundred rpm. This experience, and other explanations of tip vortices, led me to believe they were of small diameter directly behind the aircraft and expanded in diameter the further back they got while sinking at several hundred feet per minute.

This picture is from "wiki".
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ortex_edit.jpg

I was on a photoshoot for a backcountry flying video with my Husky at Nevada's Black Rock Desert. Near the north end of the desert there are a couple of small playas that are protected from the wind, surrounded by small mountains. The playa surface had fine alkali dust that readily showed the air disturbance behind the Husky, which normally takes off full flaps. As soon as the plane started its take off roll, each tip vortice looked to be about 20 feet in diameter, sucking the fine dust up from the ground and rolling it up and over onto the wing reaching almost to the fuselage - it looked impressive.

The Husky has a perhaps undeserved* reputation for "Moose Stalls". So named as the aircraft is typically circling low over game counting animal populations or doing photograph. It is thought the aircraft, while circling tightly, dirty or "slowed up" with flaps extended, flies into its own wake causing a low altitude stall and loss of control. I have flown into my own wake doing this, though at higher altitude with room to recover - it's an eye opener.

*Undeserved, not because it doesn't happen with the Husky, but rather that the Husky has been used by many state Fish and Games for animal surveys, predator control etc. - lots of exposure. There have been Super Cub crashes under similar circumstances.