Wake turbulence - nearly crashed!

Crash barely avoided when a flexwing microlight its wake turbulence on take off

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• microlight
• ultralight
• mainair
• blade
• 912
• wake turbulence
• crash
• plane
• accident
• scared
• scary
• out of control
• disaster

[NashvilleKildCountry]

I never thought those puddle jumpers caused that much wake turbulence. Interesting.

[Microlightgary]

@NashvilleKildCountry - its because they're sooo draggy. In fact, when flying a trike, you're taught never to make tight 360 degree turns as the thump when flying through your own wake turbulence is pretty violent (yup, I had to try it anyway... and it certainly was).

[Microlightgary]

Ahem; can I point out to all the interested posters above that I'm the pilot of the 3-axis machine I'm not flying the flexwing, and despite suggestions otherwise, the pilot's departure was definitely caused by wake turbulence...

[jjpuxty]

@emp29 Wow, I would never even have though five minutes would have been needed. Well, there you go, that's why pilots are experts, :-)

[emp29]

@jjpuxty I can't remember if it's 5 mins or 15mins

[jjpuxty]

From a lay perspective (non flyer) it seems that there was a fair bit of time between the first aircraft take off and the second. How long a wait is required for the turbulence to pass?

[DouglasMiles1]

It's not that the plane creates such extreem turblance as much as no time at all was given for it to clear and ultralights are (as the name implies) light. It takes very little turbulance to upset them.

[ZaHa559]

either way..... nice recovery.....

[lvcyberpimpin]

When you takeoff behind another aircraft, you rotate and liftoff before their rotation point on the runway and then out climb them. If you are unable, you offset to upwind side off the vortices. or wait the 2 minutes which you clearly did not do....thats Basic Piloting 101. In 23,000+ hours of flying i can count the times i have been in wake turbulence on both hands. Follow the basic rules....don't learn the hard way.

[ritualghost]

Wake turbulence can last up to 3 minutes, and has a sinking tendency. So yes, it could have been wake turbulence. And no, you don't know what your talking about.