
3rd leg: Palo Alto, CA - Medford, OR (IFR)
So, after sightseeing the beautiful San Francisco area, we are ready to depart Palo Alto by noon. We are cleared for take off and the IFR routing takes us over the bay at 2000 ft for uhhh…say 20 miles. Beautiful. Once we are well-clear of the SFO terminal area, we are finally allowed to climb to our cruise altitude of 6000 ft. We are headed for Medford, OR to refuel and continue to Troutdale Airport. Today, my friend Nate is flying us back. He is a bright young pilot and has lots of confidence, which makes him a pleasure to ride with. I am handling the radios and he is flying the airplane, smooth as silk. We have been at cruise altitude for about an hour, flying over the Sacramento Valley when the controller tells us that a Southwest Boeing 737 will pass 1000 ft above us, same direction. We look for him, and he finally appears on top of us, over taking us quickly. The big beast disturbs the air as it goes by, and we look carefully for a minute or two, just in case we hit the turbulence it’s leaving behind. After what we consider a cautionary wait, we are confident we won’t get in his wake. Right after we lower our guard, there comes a pronounced bank towards the right (about 30 degrees), immediately followed by a left roll, which put us at about a 90 degree left bank!! The nose dropped and we started descending. Nate immediately retarded the throttle and straightened the wings, then finally leveled off the airplane – our very fist encounter with wake turbulence... The rest of the trip was uneventful, as Nate flew a nice VOR approach into Medford. We quickly refueled and headed for Troutdale.
1 comment:
Ha! Now you're in my neck of the woods!
Cheers,
Ryan
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