Originally Posted by
Ajax
I'm going to throw a question out to you pilots...are you able to safely fly on final and land behind a heavy/B757 with less than 5 miles by staying "above" the descent profile of that heavy? I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that if you stayed at a higher profile/angle, and touched down at a point further down the runway than the heavy, that you would stay above such wake. Again, I'll confess I'm not a pilot, so I may be misinformed on this.
This is actually a great myth in our industry. I say that because it's not an exact science by any means or accounts. The problem here's that I know for a fact that you guys have been led to believe that we can follow a 75 by as little as 3.5 miles as long as we're above his glide. Well, here's the problem with that theory, first of all, if you have any type of tail wind there's goes your higher glide "safety" zone. Second, I do have friends at CAL that fly the 75, and they'll tell you first hand, that they don't always follow the slope themselves, which again kills any margin of safety you think you get by flying higher. Another factor to consider is that sooner or later in order to land in the touch down zone we're going to have to catch that glide, well, if separation is lost, I can tell you from personal experience that a 75 will roll an RJ without any problems, it is quite possibly the most efficient wing design ever developed, trust me, I've gotten less wake from a 76. So in absence of separation, I won't fly the aircraft higher than I'm required as it has not made much of a difference in the past. I'll just advice of our inability to maintain the assigned speed based on separation. Shooting a near unstable approach visual or not, is really not in our best interest.
Originally Posted by
Ajax
Which brings me to another observation. Watching the Singapore heavy coming from Kuala Lumpur go around because of a conflict with a Rwy 11 Colgan arrival that took off 35 minutes ago makes me cringe my teeth every time it happens. Not fair but its just easier for the tower to have a 22L go around than the 11.
I completely understand that, however, I think we've reached a point where we're pushing the limits of both aircraft and airspace in order to accommodate the inadequacies of the planning and marketing departments at certain legacy carriers. I truly hope that an accident is not necessary to address these issues with separation. Once again thank you for taking the time to answer.
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