Monica, thank you for sharing such beautiful writing. I hope you’ll return to flying one day.
I have never hit any serious wake turbulence, but have hit some minor wakes, several times. The one thing that I have felt in the lesser encounters is just a little fluttering in the elevator controls and sometimes the rudder before you get the excursions. I have felt the same in mountain generated clear air turbulence, probably the little Eddies around the core. Gives me just a second to prepare for something possibly worse. Even on AP I fly with my hand on the yoke and my feet on the rudders. The wakes I have felt have either been little thumps, or the back and forth rolling like you would feel on a water slide. But I am wary of larger aircraft. I ride the ILS down at least a half dot high if in trail, and try to visualize where larger aircraft cross in front of. If I have a large aircraft on the same ground path, I will often ask for an upwind vector. This was going into Boeing Field on the ?Chins arrival. I took this picture of this beautiful ultra heavy bird 1000 ft above, and then asked for an upwind vector.
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Perspectives + has a secondary map page to show type/speed etc……but it can take an extra 5-7 seconds to pull up.
Thank you Kim-Son.
Monica:
Are you still flying a Cirrus? If not, what do you fly now?
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Wonderfully written and you raise so many important concepts, each worthy of careful consideration by all pilots. Thanks for sharing and glad you walked away safely from a terrifying approach.
Hi Brian. I posted a link to the second installment that talks about this here in the comments. I’m not flying now. I didn’t have a flight mission after moving to Central Oregon so decided to turn my energies to other passions. I loved flying, including the mental challenge, the sense of fellowship with other pilots, and the incredible beauty.
OK, I am a little confused as I did not see the original blog. I am just responding to the responses on COPA here.
Of course, a deviation in either direction would be equally effective. There is no wind in the air.
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How do you bring that extra page showing the aircraft speed and class on P+? I use Foreflight for this but would be great to have it on the MFD.
And if you are on the same track as another airplane, let’s say a localizer, and there’s any crosswind, there’s no wake turbulence to worry about. Both planes are crabbing to maintain a ground track.
Kinda, sorta.
While there is no relative wind in the air mass itself, there of course is relative to the ground track.
Two aircraft following the same air route or LOC due west with zero wind (relative to earth). The trail aircraft is going to have the lead aircraft directly on their nose.
If the track is 270, and the winds become 360, then both aircraft have to crab into the “wind” in order to maintain the ground track.
The lead aircraft would now start shifting to the 11 o’clock position relative to the trail aircraft. The stronger the wind out of 360, the bigger the crab needed to maintain a 270 track, and the further left the lead moves on the followers windscreen. The wakes of both aircraft are fanning out from directly behind them in the moving airmass. Eventually, the crab would be big enough to exit the wake.
So, if one is crabbed to maintain a track, but still in the preceding wake, offsetting to the crab (upwind) side will get you out of it in a shorter offset; as if you go to the opposite side, you have to cross not only what’s left of the wake on the side that you’re on, but the whole other side. (ie, you’d have to move the lead aircraft from your 11 o’clock all the way to say your 2 o’clock instead of just going from 11 to 10.)
So, either direction will work, but if you’re riding the right edge of the lead’s wake, offsetting to the right requires less offset to get out of it.
Same if the airmass was stationary (or in a boat on a calm lake). If you were ever so slightly offset to the right, but in the wake, offsetting further right requires less distance traveled to exit the wake, because you have less wake to exit.
Pretty sure I got that right… 
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IF the crosswind is strong enough that the crab required gets you out of the wake.
A light crosswind is actually more to worry about, as it can have you on the more turbulent edges of the wake, rather than the more stable middle.
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Part of the reason there is so much confusion on this topic is partly due to the training materials.
I just looked at a few, and all of them diagram the figures with the planes oriented along the flight track, without showing the proper headings and crab angles.
This makes it easy to infer that the wakes are moving en mass, independently of the air mass, which they are not.
In an effort to “simplify” the figures, they induce misunderstanding.
Wake travels with the wind. We navigate our planes such as on an arrival or approach by the ground. A simple example of this is landing parallel runways that are close together with a crosswind. Both aircraft are crabbing to stay on the approach course relative to the ground. The wake is traveling with the wind. If you are landing the downwind runway you are at risk of hitting the wake as it blows downwind. If you are landing the upwind runway, there is no chance of hitting the wake as it is blowing away from you. Same applies up in the air on an airway, departure or arrival.
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Maps page, little knob down to traffic page, use large knob to pick aircraft you want data on and it will show up
Flight data located here (cited in article #2) 02/14/20 : 75S-KBFI : N382DJ : FlightData.com