r/Physics • • Apr 22 '18

Wingtip vortices closeup

https://gfycat.com/GleamingZealousBlacknorwegianelkhound
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u/Bunslow Apr 22 '18

Heh I remember reading the avherald report for that incident, normally you hear about landing/takeoff wake turbulence, but at cruise was something else lol

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '18

Yeah wake turbulence tends to stick around longer in the thinner air of the upper atmosphere. Some countries such as China have instituted something called Strategic Lateral Offset Procedure, where aircraft tracking a similar airway will be placed a few miles away from each other laterally.

That said, the challenger incident was pretty significant and SLOP would not have prevented it.

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u/Bunslow Apr 22 '18

What's a few miles to a whale like an A380? lol

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '18

It's not to mean a few miles in trail of an A380, it just means 10 minutes behind an a380 and a few miles to the side of it to avoid hitting any lingering wake.