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My brown pants moment (wingtip vortices)

Using the elevator, possibly?

Mind you its a while since I last had much to do with planes.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Jets have very little, negligible incidence, so while not quite zero lift, close to it. Once the nose wheel is on the ground the co efficient of lift is much reduced and the induced drag which produces vortices are also reduced to negligible levels. Hence the need for positive rotation at Vr. If multi engine jets had light piston GA incidence am presuming you would have some interesting wheel barrowing problems negating the concept of V1 for performance A jets.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

Good point Robert. I had forgotten the difference.

EGTK Oxford

Good you’re back in the air, @Peter_Mundy
Heard you on the radio yesterday.

@RobertL18C
Hmm. I think there is a little more to it. Think about wing tip vortices at 90 knots. Jets are not landing with a clean wing, I would expect the jet to roll out with flaps to be still fully out, creating turbulence. Think about jet engines running even at low speed, they will blow a single engine aircraft all over the place with the jet stationary.

Whilst the a jet is finishing up the landing run after touched down, I think a GA aircraft should keep well away from the runway, unless a good cross wind is blowing. Peter’s experience makes that clear to me.
Especially true when jets are using short runways.

I’d also recommend to stay well away from the back of a slowly taxiing jet and only to follow at some distance. And its nothing to do with wing induced turbulence.

Somewhere like Schiphol it is possible to keep a little tighter with landing jet traffic by staying high and then to be landing long.

Last Edited by complex-pilot at 27 Feb 23:24

As I understand it a cross wind can actually make the situation worse – yes, it blows one of the vortices away but at the same time blows the other one across the runway so I guess the danger period would actually be longer.

This was actually my second encounter with wake turbulence. The first was as a passenger in a TB20 about 20 years ago. One of the glorious summer evenings we used to have with the air as smooth as a silk. We were at 1500ft crossing North Holland East to West, North of SPY, which takes you under the approach path to 18 at Schiphol. A KLM 747 crossed our path at least 5 miles ahead and 1000ft above. I pointed out the traffic to my pilot who was busy demonstrating his shiny new toy and suggested we make a small detour to avoid any possibility of hitting his wake. Captain thought this was not necessary so we carried on. Again I thought my end had come. Severe turbulence and a 90 degree roll. We survived but with cuts and bruises from the impact with the roof despite being strapped in. A calm evening, no wind to dissipate the wake and insufficient separation.

EHLE / Lelystad, Netherlands, Netherlands

Does the use of flaps as speed brakes generate wingtip vortices?

I thought they resulted from

  • generation of lift, not drag, and
  • the wing not being of infinite length
Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Disturbing post. Bottom line: 2 mins not enough? This is the first time I’ve hear of wake “bouncing back”

Tököl LHTL

complex agree completely, abundance of caution is correct. On Peter’s point flaps deployed change camber and increase lift for AoA, so yes even at zero AoA more lift is deployed, however on the ground you are in max ground effect and the combination of zero alpha and ground effect reduces induced drag massively.

The FAA take this more seriously than other agencies and have a very good circular on the subject.

http://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_90-23G.pdf

I recall reading that vortices can bounce, but couldn’t remember where I saw it.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

Thank you for sharing this threatening experience, Peter. It reminds one again about the hazard of wake turbulences. I often make low approaches at EDDL – even was based there a couple of years ago and have to admit, that I didn’t pay enough attention. Glad, that you escaped this situatuation

EDLE
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