interesting, is there a rule for that separation ? in all VFR flight I have done, they just issue one and like go figure it out yourself. I think there was one instance long back when I was flying real IMC approach with a CFII from IAF and they cleared an MD-8 to go to FAF and essentially descend in front of me (I was coming from South and he was approaching from SE). I was doing 90 kts anyway and he was lot faster and I slowed down even more and it wasnt much of an issue. It wasnt hard IMC either, just lots of haze and every inbound was doing the ILS, I was doing RNAV
It’s in the controller regs not ours, but as
@EdFred said, it’s why we have stuff like callsigns ending in “heavy”.
My comment about the 757 was that I believe it was the first airliner that didn’t meet the weight requirements as a “heavy” but it generated so much wake turbulence AND at least a couple of accidents and near accidents for light(er) aircraft following it, that it’s had special separation rules similar to “heavies” for a long time now. Think I remember at least two 182s being flipped on final by the 75. Definitely one, was a CAP 182 in Utah.
So eventually after the 75 became the oddball that didn’t follow the weight rules the whole thing was somewhat re-vamped to have a few aircraft cross those weight boundaries originally used but be handled as if they were in the higher weight class.
In other words, different tables nowadays.
Most... by weight. Some... by “that thing generates a stronger wake than it should for its size”.
Tim has mentioned the specifics before for his airport. Runway lengths allowed, different visibility, stuff like that.
In flight the in-flight separation rules apply. Even those aren’t enough sometimes in the right conditions.
There’s a few YT videos of bizjets in trail of airliners descending on approaches that get smacked around and partially rolled. You also hear crews chatting about it when they see conditions setting up VMC for it to happen at altitude, and asking to move left or right laterally if someone in front of them had their descent stopped and they’re still cleared to descend behind them.
Just off the top of my head the YT channel “Corporate Pilot Life” has one in the last year or so. I think “Captain Moonbeam” may also have one further back in his collection.
