Had a friend die today :(

colojo said:
I've read that wake turbulence from a 757 is the worst of any airliner due to the efficiency of its wing.
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For years the 757 was treated as a large airplane for wake turbulence separation purposes and others were getting some crazy gyrations so the FAA finally classified it as a heavy for the additional separation provided for following planes. A friend in a CRJ 700 years ago in ATL on final ended up in a 90* vertical behind a 757, fortunately recovered. Said it caught him totally by surprise and scared the u-know-what outa him.
 
800' is pretty close together considering AC 90-23G discusses special considerations in regards to wake turbulence whenever parallel runways are less than 2500' apart.
 
colojo said:
I know this has been posted before but it comes to mind:

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That dredged up a memory. It was a CH53, a big and heavy helicopter. It departs ahead of me while I'm on final in a C150. I'm past the threshold, haven't started to round out yet, thank god, when I'm in what seemed like a 45 degree bank like right now, was probably about 30. That's when I learned that there's more to Helos than down blast. They make wakes, just like a wing, a vortice off of each side.
 
The wake from the 757 is certainly no joke. I remember back in 1993 some top executives of In-N-Out Burger were flying in a small business jet and were killed when they flew through the wake of a 757 at Orange County (SNA). When I fly out of SNA it's always busy with commercial traffic. It's easy to get complacent about wake turbulence when you get accustomed to parallel approaches next to the heavies with no signs of wake turbulence. Accidents like these are a sobering reminder of the invisible risks.
 
We had an Antonov bipe on the field until it crashed recently on approach to San Bernardino. Those vortices are to be taken seriously, for sure.

IMG_2223.JPG
 
MtnMarcus said:
WOW....who would of thought!
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I know, right? We don't see too many AN-2s flying around in this country, but prior to watching this video, I would not have thought them to be that big of a threat. I know they are big for a single bi-plane, but they don't seem all that huge and they are slow. One usually associates wake turbulence to fast moving planes and really large planes. I would have easily fallen victim just as those poor Robin fliers did. That absolutely could have been me.
 
Here on Whidbey, we had a great guy die yesterday Alan Hodgkins was the third -IA here on the island, now there's only me and Brian32 and we are both retired.
Allan was 83, long run, with a long list of customers who will now be with out a IA.
 
So sorry, I was recently vectored under a C-141. Needless to say, I declined and the controller, well, she was very apologetic.
 
Oops, sorry, was a C-5A coming into DMAFB, not enough coffee when I wrote it.
 
Pilawt said:
At SNA the parallel GA runway is less than 2900' long, so not many options other than going around. And there too, if there is a crosswind it's usually from the west, blowing the wakes toward the GA runway.

Over the threshhold at SNA I've also experienced jet blast from airliners holding short between the runways. Startling, but it doesn't last long.
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OP, sorry for your loss. :(

Yes, the wake avoidance at SNA is no joke and gets drilled into you many times if you train there. My approaches on 20L are always steep for this reason; often times I just go around. I ask myself, what's another few minutes? Although with over half of 2,900' used up it makes for fun short field practice too.
 
3 in the green said:
OP, sorry for your loss. :(

Yes, the wake avoidance at SNA is no joke and gets drilled into you many times if you train there. My approaches on 20L are always steep for this reason; often times I just go around. I ask myself, what's another few minutes? Although with over half of 2,900' used up it makes for fun short field practice too.
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Yeah, and if there's no wake turbulence, you might have to land long to avoid jet blast from a 737 between the runways, taxiing to 20R. I was a bit low once in this situation and got a very unsettling wing rock out of it.
 
SoCal RV Flyer said:
Yeah, and if there's no wake turbulence, you might have to land long to avoid jet blast from a 737 between the runways, taxiing to 20R. I was a bit low once in this situation and got a very unsettling wing rock out of it.
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Wouldn't it just be better for everybody if they turned El Toro into an active GA airport?? :)
 
I'm trying to understand why people think that Wake Turbulence doesn't exist?
 
mscard88 said:
For years the 757 was treated as a large airplane for wake turbulence separation purposes and others were getting some crazy gyrations so the FAA finally classified it as a heavy for the additional separation provided for following planes. A friend in a CRJ 700 years ago in ATL on final ended up in a 90* vertical behind a 757, fortunately recovered. Said it caught him totally by surprise and scared the u-know-what outa him.
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And the FAA put the 757 back in the "large" category, i.e. not a "heavy," but special separation criteria apply.
 
OP....man, so sorry. Losing friends is hard to deal with. Hopefully in time, all the fantastic memories you had with them keep coming to mind once you are able to move past this moment.

This has also been another learning experience. Getting back in the saddle, the other posters have shared some great advice, tips and knowledge for me to use.
 
DesertNomad said:
Crash of an A36 Bonanza on short final in Reno... got passed by a 757 and looks like wake turbulence rolled him into the ground. The guy has thousands of hours, is a CFII and owns a local flight school.

:(

RIP. Be careful out there.
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This is always hard to read. The plane I soloed in for the first time and most of my solos went down 4 hours after one of my solos. CFI and student instrument pilot lost there life that night. I am allways praying for you pilots.
 
I took a friend of mine and his wife on a bay night cruise landing at KHAF for dinner. He had always been interested in flying, and even took lessons, but he told me that he arrived at the airport for training one day (Placerville) only to discover that his CFI, plane, and another student were killed in a crash. It freaked him out for a while and he stopped training.
 
Sac Arrow said:
I took a friend of mine and his wife on a bay night cruise landing at KHAF for dinner. He had always been interested in flying, and even took lessons, but he told me that he arrived at the airport for training one day (Placerville) only to discover that his CFI, plane, and another student were killed in a crash. It freaked him out for a while and he stopped training.
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After the Cessna 172 went down I got back up quick. We only had a Cherokee 140 so I took a lesson in it and had a great time. I knew if I didn't get back up wife and kids would have talked me out of it. The school closed the next day.
 
Accidents like this are always sobering. A whole lot of fatal plane crashes can easily be dismissed and put aside because you can tell yourself that you are a better pilot and would never do that dumb trick, but ones like this it's harder to just write off because it could have happened to any of us no matter how many hours, or training. It does make you ask yourself, "Why the hell do I pay all this money and jump through the bureaucratic hoops just to participate in an activity that could easily kill me?"
 
Dav8or said:
Accidents like this are always sobering. A whole lot of fatal plane crashes can easily be dismissed and put aside because you can tell yourself that you are a better pilot and would never do that dumb trick, but ones like this it's harder to just write off because it could have happened to any of us no matter how many hours, or training. It does make you ask yourself, "Why the hell do I pay all this money and jump through the bureaucratic hoops just to participate in an activity that could easily kill me?"
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Because you are one of the very small percent of pilots in the world. Your love for flying out weighs the dangers involved.
This is the thing I was affraid of as I wrote the thread Tower:"take down this number"
 
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