Wake Turbulence
hi all, i'd like just to exchange some experience with u all bizjet guys. Last week I was approaching in Dubai at 5.00 am ,the weather was fine, wind not considerable,the flight was perfect even the catering was great!
Atis says that rwy in use was 12 and I said :"perfect I'm coming from west so no neverending vectors for rwy 30..today is my day!! i love this job!!"
But.....maybe somebody heard me...
After a while they changed the rwy and i was the second in approach,..ok my breakfast in the hotel will be delayed of 15 minutes i thought...
the vectors were shorter than usual and they closed me 12 miles on final at 2000 ft (usually they go for 20 at least!!)
in front of me there was an emirates triple 7 ,but checking on tcas and visually too it was at the right distance about six miles.
just for information i was with a Falcon 900...at 10 miles with the approach configuration istarted to feel a strange buffet on my aircraft very strange,than after a while my left wing rocked about 30 degrees but the autopilot corrected promptly,then i put my hands on the controls (as i use to do always in turbulence) and the wing rocked strongly 60 degrees again on the left...i can't remember if i disconnected the autopilot or it did by itself but i was full deflection on the right and the aircraft was 5 degrees bank on the left..1800 ft i disconnected the autothrottle too and magically after i guess 5/10 seconds really scaring i had the full control of the aircraft again..
once i landed i called the dubai's twr (not so easy as u can think!!) to know the real distance of the 777 and they weren't so friendly even if i didn't accuse anyone..
analyzing the situation in the hotel with a fresh and nice beer i remembered the image of my tcas showing a lot of aircraft +8 +7 +6 so conclusion....
sometimes we only take care about distance of the preceeding traffic..just take in consideration the wake turb of an heavy departure in case of change of rwy..nice lesson learned..i hope to be helpful for u 2 guys...enjoy your flight!