B777 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness
Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Inflight Event / Encounter Wake Vortex Encounter
Flight Crew Returned To Clearance; Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Environment - Non Weather Related; Human Factors
The LCA captain and I (first leg of my IOE) had just returned from break and were briefed by the relief pilots that the turbulence we were in was being caused by the wake of a Super 380 in front of us which was further right of course than us with a right to left wind. The thought was to go further right to get behind him so we would be out of the wake; so we went R3 on the SLOP and did get out of the wake. We then received a message from ATC asking how far right we were and replied R3 and next message from ATC said R2 was max SLOP so we returned to R2 and sent a reply stating we were returning on course. By this time the Super in front of us was now left of track so we [were] out of his wake turbulence.
I normally use 1 NM and have never used more than 2. I have no excuse for thinking at that moment the limit is 3 NM. A short time later Brisbane asked how far right we were. We replied 3 NM. They advised the max is 2 and we immediately corrected to 2 NM and advised.
B777 flight crew reported they exceeded maximum lateral deviation on an oceanic track in an attempt to minimize wake turbulence from the preceding A380.