Great Visualisation of Wingtip Vortices!

[John.com]

Greetings from a sunny South Africa!

 

As a new member I had to share one of my favorite pictures, which relates to this very relevant topic!

 

Wingtip vortices! Often spoken about, but seldom seen . . . . . this visualisation courtesy of a US military cargo aircraft having deployed missile countermeasure flares.

 

 

What wingtip vortices are and how they form is relatively simple to understand:

 

• The air on top of the wings of an aircraft in flight is at a lower pressure than the surrounding air. This is one of the basics of aerodynamics - Bernoulli's Principle
   
   
  
• The air underneath the wings of an aircraft in flight has a higher pressure than the air above the wings
   
   
  
• This differential air pressure causes the air below to want to take up the area where the reduced air pressure is located above the wings
   
   
  
• The wing tips are really the only place along the wings where this can occur. So, the air below circles around the tip of the wing to meet the air above
   
   
  
• This circling action creates horizontal 'tornadoes' that trail behind the aircraft as the aircraft moves forward
   
   
  
• The air being pushed to the side of the aircraft's fuselage also contributes to the movement of the vortices. They tend to move away from the aircraft and then they follow the wind direction
   
   
  

 

 

 

Operational Tips For Light Aircraft – How to Avoid Vortex Wake:

 

1. Lift Off Short of Large Aircraft Rotation Point.

 

2. Land Well Beyond Large Aircraft Touchdown Point.

 

3. Pass Over Flight Path of Large Aircraft, or At Least 1000' Under.

 

4. Stay to Windward of Large Aircraft Flight Paths.

 

5. Keep Alert, Especially on Calm Days When Vortices Persist Longest.

 

(http://www.komanetskyaviation.com/Education/WingTipVortices/index.htm)

 

Safe Flying!

 

 

[Guernsey]

WOW! he must have been flying really high to be passing a couple of Angels.

 

Alan.

 

 

[facthunter]

Gives you an idea of where the energy needed to keep you aloft is dissipated.. Nev

 

 

[forexjohnny]

Yep.....suck your pants right off.

 

 

[Yenn]

Theyre not angels, that is part of Santa's makeup.

 

 

[wenimbig]

 

And don't forget the rotor craft version!

 

 

[John.com]

[ATTACH=full]16253[/ATTACH]And don't forget the rotor craft version!

Awesome, and very interesting to see how vortices form off a rotary wing! Thanks for sharing that!

 

 

[eightyknots]

Great pictures!

 

 

[Oscar]

This one is pretty famous - from a NACA / NASA test:

 

http://hmf.enseeiht.fr/travaux/bei/beiep/sites/default/files/users/lclavell/wakevortex_large_9-14-072.jpg

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

Some of my favourites, courtesy of Airliners.net -

 

 

 

 

 

 

[facthunter]

There's something wrong with yours Oscar. It's going the wrong way. Nev

 

 

[Bob Llewellyn]

There's something wrong with yours Oscar. It's going the wrong way. Nev

smoke source on ground?

 

 

[facthunter]

I reckon it is a "made up ,composite" .for effect... Nev

 

 

[Oscar]

Nope, it was a genuine NASA test - here's a similar one they did on a C-5A:

 

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Interesting Oscar, but pretty hard to see which side of the Galaxy was closer to the smoke tower.

 

 

[Oscar]

Um, surely it's pretty clear that the port wingtip passed something like 10 metres from the tower ( see 0.04 of the video). Since it has a nearly 68 metre span, that makes the other one maybe 78 metres away, if my calculator isn't lying to me. If I were flying a Galaxy - or anything, really - closely past a tower, I'd want to be able to see the bleeding tower out my side window..

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

The scale of the tower is not clear, but from the size of the van parked nearby it looks like the Galaxy overflew it. The break in the footage could mean the impressive vortex was made on a different run, and that vortex would have spun off the right wingtip.

 

 

[Bob Llewellyn]

The scale of the tower is not clear, but from the size of the van parked nearby it looks like the Galaxy overflew it. The break in the footage could mean the impressive vortex was made on a different run, and that vortex would have spun off the right wingtip.

Um - without splitting hairs, if NACA weren't doing an april fool's exercise, then the magnitude and intensity of the vortices is shown pretty well, whichever wingtip they were off.

 

 

[facthunter]

It's where a lot of the energy goes, It has to go somewhere and you only stay up by pushing air down and some spills out from under the wing at the ends of it. Slow and heavy has the most effect. In still air they linger for longer . They move with the airmass they are in, so fly upwind if behind. Nev