Wake Turbulence Question for UK ATC
Is the recommended separation between aircraft that you give out, to the following aircraft, advisory or mandatory; ie, can a pilot choose to ignore it if he so wishes?
Helicopters are largely unaffected by it. In 30 years the only wake turbulence I've encountered is from another helicopter.
We recently started to operate our Police helicopter from an airfield where ATC absolutely refuses to lets us depart until after the required number of minuets have passed. We have several things in our favour: A, we are about 100m to one side of the runway; B, the prevailing wind is blowing the vortexes away from us; C, we are not following the preceding aircraft and will quickly be above and turning away from it's flight path; and as I've mentioned, it doesn't really affect us.
Are ATC legally obliged to make us wait or is it a case of their airfield, their rules?
Our Chief Pilot will be discussing the matter with them in a couple of days, but we just want to get our facts right.
Thanks