Wake turb encounter
 

This was my first wake turb encounter.

Departing MNL Monday night on CO934. Three minutes after wheels up there was a violent, uncommanded roll to port immediately followed by a sharp correction by PF. The 738 was quivering. There was no WX at MNL. It's dry season and no CB. There was only one brief encounter and the rest of the flight was smooth.

If anyone was standing during this event there is no doubt we'd have had an injury. Nobody could have kept their feet and they'd have been pitched into the roof or other pax. Worse if the carts were being pushed down the aisle.

In this case it wasn't too scary because we must have been at least 4,000 feet above ground and it was quite clear what was happening. But it would have been very nasty on short final or if we were only a few seconds off the ground.

On that note, there was as usual some turb inbound to NRT on Saturday but nothing like the nightmare of NW73 a couple of years ago.

Keep those belts tight after departure and before arrival!

RTS

Has happened to me a few times. Flight from IAH to MSY - midway - a smooth flight - then all of a sudden the plane just drops - quick. Cart goes in the air - FAs go to ceiling. Plane continues - no announcement.

Also - bad turb on a flight from EWR to GRU - I had to hold on to the FA to keep her from going to the ceiling. Sometimes things like this happen - but not very often. The planes are designed to withstand the bounce.

744 flights to SYD seem to always hit turb midway - even in a FC bed in the front nose section you bounce around - likely worst in the back. That far from land - I would rather be in a big 744 with four engines.

Just part of flying - and an important reason to keep seat belt buckled during flight.

The conclusion is valid, but none of those sound like wake turbulence, especially (hopefully!) a transpac flight to SYD. Those sound like clear air turbulence; unless, of course, the weather wasn't clear.

One would generally expect to encounter wake turbulence durning t/o, landing, and near the airport; less so during cruise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_turbulence

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Xyzzy
CO forum moderator

Not true. Wake turbulence can be encountered at any time - at any altitude. Its simply the point of passing through another aircraft's vortices... which can trail out for at least a couple of miles. I've experienced wake turbulence at 35,000 from an opposite direction heavy passing 1,000 above.

However, the effects of wake turbulence are most dangerous during takeoff and landing due to the close proximity to the ground and lowers speeds (particularly during landing when Vapp is closer to Vstall.

There's also there's a listing of acronyms in this FAQ Post.

I was on a NW DC-9 flying in to DTW when we hit turbulence hard enough for the jump seater to come back with a flashlight to peer at the wings. Not very comforting!

I should not have used the word "only". My thinking is/was that the fact that you're generally closer to more aircraft make it more likely.

Encountering wake turbulence over the oceans, esp. the pacific, is far less likely than near a busy airport, right? (I'm no pilot; I'm assuming C-5Crewdog knows a lot more than I do about this stuff.)

It could have been wind shear but that is most common during thunderstorms. Though, your experience could have had to do with some sort of wind shear associated with the proximity of the airport to the water.

Windshear requires some meaningful surface and/or medium level winds and/or convective instability. But there was hardly any wind in this case through FL100. No such convection. Skies were clear. There wasn't a ripple at any time during the first hour of flight except for this one violent event.

If you'd been on this flight I'm sure you'd have agreed that the signature of Monday's event (transient response of violent roll, location near the airport, timing three mins after wheels up, altitude, environmental conditions) was that of a wake turb encounter. It wasn't random CAT, associated with upper-level shearing, or low-level windshear.

I'm glad we don't encounter this kind of thing too often.

FAA "severe turb" encounters: 2
Wake turb encounters: 1

RTS

Never mind.