Spotted Two Airliners Not Too Far From Each Other...

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Member for

17 years 9 months

Posts: 454

This morning while I was on my coffee break, I spotted a contrail from an airliner and I realized there were actually two airliners not too far from each other. The one ahead seemed to me an Airbus A380 and not too far from behind to its right, I couldn't make out what kind of aircraft it was except it had sharply swept wings and with a t-tail. What was out of the ordinary is that they were maybe just under a mile apart. Isn't it dangerous?!

MAAKUSIMI

Original post

Member for

19 years 5 months

Posts: 9,821

Yes, wake turbulence can be dangerous.
But it's difficult to judge distance, especially when one aircraft is a A380...it's so big it throws off the scale.

How much smaller was the other aircraft...was it a Lear or a MD-80? What I'm trying to ask is how do you know it wasn't a Lear at a much lower altitude or a MD-80 at a higher altitude?

If it was a bizjet and THAT close, it could have been used for air to air photography.

Member for

17 years 9 months

Posts: 454

It wasn't a bizjet. It was somewhat small or mid size commercial plane...

Member for

16 years

Posts: 1,059

It is very difficult to judge distance from the ground like this. For example, the aircraft could have been 1500 feet apart vertically (is that the interval in a stack?) and it would be impossible to see from the ground.