757 = Heavy? / Wake

[Pegasus77]

This is the weird thing about it, even here everybody seems to know that there is something about the 757 regarding wakes, still I cannot find any rule in any country, or anyway not in Germany or in Holland...

Dan W... Do you have a webreference to your AIC-page?

Thanks if anyone can help me out here!

P77

[willbav8r]

Here in the US, the AIM specifies a Heavy type for wake turbulence avoidance, and includes the 757.

Perhaps that has been used by Euro operators (hence everyone seems to know, which is nice.....)?????

[Willit Run]

In the U.S. the regs were rewritten to include the 757 as a heavy. The old limit was 300,000 lbs, and its now down to 225,000(i think). And the whole reason for this was for wake seperation!
At a previous company, we had a strange DC-8 that had a gross weight of 293,000 pounds. Some guys (nuts) insisted on telling the controllers that they were not a "heavy". So, they take off at 293,000 lbs, with 1 minute seperation,and the proper DC-8 behind them took off at 250,000 and with three minute seperation. see the picture here. Some of these guys couldn't see the forest through the trees, as they were so focussed on the details and not safety or reason behind the rule. Wake turbulence is extremely violent and should not be screwed with.

[Ignition Override]

Start with the B-727 vortices. When I jogged under final approach at MSP several years ago, the descending wingtip vorteces from a 727 sounded like a pair of the weirdest whistling dust devils I could imagine, especially when they hit the trees.

A Lufthansa pilot told me years ago in SFO (as we waited for our limo vans) that his A-340 was quickly rolled to about 20-25 degrees when he departed Munich behind a 757.