Regional Jet 200 ER/LR (CRJ200)
Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Instrument
Situational Awareness
Inflight Event / Encounter Wake Vortex Encounter
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; Flight Crew Took Evasive Action
Procedure; Environment - Non Weather Related
Runway 8L was the current runway in operation and we were assigned 8L from the Approach Controller. Approaching from the South the Controller had us descend to 4000 and then 3000 feet fly a 070 heading or so and cleared us for pretty much a straight in Visual Approach to 8L. Preceding us was an A321 that came in from a base leg to final above us at 4000 feet and intercepted in front of us 1000' above. Our separation was about 3 nm. The winds were a quartering tailwind from the left not too strong. (10-15 kts approximately). Sometime between being cleared for the visual approach and the final approach fix we caught the wake turbulence from that A321. I had to disconnect the autopilot but the aircraft was rocking left and right rather rapidly and I would say approximately 30 degrees of bank change within a second. It lasted for approximately 5-10 seconds. I immediately leveled off and climbed a little bit to get out of it. The rest of the way I followed the glide path high and did not experience any more wake turbulence. The wake turbulence encounters are getting bad in Atlanta. Last summer; I don't remember having so many issues. I have had an abnormally high level of encounters lately and I've been following all the tricks like flying high; staying upwind; etc... The problem is Tower is clearing us to takeoff behind a 757 or A321 before that aircraft has even rotated... (We definitely need more separation from those two!!!). Perfect combination of altitude; winds; and aircraft to create a bad experience. I would love to see us come in and intercept visual approaches higher than other larger aircraft because I've had multiple wake turbulence encounters where a 757 or A321 intercepts the final approach course 1000 feet above us for the same runway. I've been counting to 15 taking off behind a 757 or 321 when Tower clears us for takeoff before he's rotated. I'm going to start using 30 seconds; let's see if ATC has a problem...
CRJ-200 Captain reported encountering wake turbulence on approach to ATL 3 miles in trail of an A321.