Portal:Physics/Selected picture/Week 9, 2007

Image credit: NASA Langley Research Center (NASA-LaRC)

Wake turbulence is turbulence that forms behind an aircraft as it passes through the air. This turbulence includes various components, the most important of which are wingtip vortices and jetwash. Jetwash refers simply to the rapidly moving air expelled from a jet engine; it is extremely turbulent, but of short duration. Wingtip vortices, on the other hand, are much more stable and can remain in the air for up to two minutes after the passage of an aircraft. Wingtip vortices make up the primary and most dangerous component of wake turbulence.