How could a 777 follow another Plane so closely without Wake Turbulence being a Factor.?
Above and slighty behind.
Follow it from slightly above and slightly to its right.
I can assure you that no transatlantic flight crew looks behind them.
Lights out in the cabin and nav lights off, no passenger on the tracked aircraft would see it.
As for how close he could hold it to the tracked aircraft, he had a large non radar area to practice before he got to an air defense zone, that is if what I have read is correct.
“How could a 777 follow another Plane so closely without Wake Turbulence being a Factor.?”
Excellent question, Mr. Linville. The vortices coming off the wingtips travel out and down. You would be out of the vortices if you were directly behind or slightly above the preceding aircraft.
“Wake Turbulence” opened for Boston back in the day
How could a 777 follow another Plane so closely without Wake Turbulence being a Factor.?
They do it all the time - it’s call landing !
Ever been to a busy airport in the evening? You can see the planes lined up one behind the other as they make their final approach with a couple of miles separation.
In this case the lead plane is traveling at assigned altitude, navigation lights/beacons working.
Then tailing plane is flying without any lights and would be very difficult to spot at this time of the morning. Tailing plane approaches from behind, stays 500 ft above the lead aircraft and maybe a mile or less behind. The tailing plane can follow the lights ahead all night.
At those distances radar might just paint a single contact, depends on how far off the military radar site is. At that time of morning it might not get much attention.
Wake turbulence is a "thing" that trails an aircraft, and descends. If they had the same "footprint", the lower a/c would not see the WT - it would descend behind it. Besides, WT to two jumbo's is a flea in the wind... it is a BIG problem for C210's, however.