Wake vortices... a sterile danger?

On 19 Dec 2005 09:24:44 -0800, "Ramapriya"
wrote:

I was at a place today from where I had a nice, clear view of the Dubai
Airport runway all day long. For about 3 hours in the morning, and
another 2-hour period in the afternoon, a string of aircraft took off
virtually tailing one another. Most of them were A330s, and the rest
were 747s and A340s, with the odd A320 and 737.

Makes me ask you folk this... are wake vortex caveats for real? How do
you manage when in a queue of big jets?

Ramapriya
ayirpamarATgmailDOTcom


As I'm sure many other posters will point out, they sure are for real.
Like sized aircraft are less susceptible to them than the small planes
are. The US has a rule where you can wait for up to 3 minutes (I
believe) for them to dissipate if taking off behind a large aircraft.
There are also approach path changes you can make to avoid the vortex
of a wing.

My primary instructor flew me through the vortex of a C-141 once to
show me how real they were. That experience was more than enough to
make me wary of them at all times.

HTH.
z