Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Private
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 10; Flight Crew Total 450; Flight Crew Type 336
ATC Issue All Types; Inflight Event / Encounter Loss Of Aircraft Control; Inflight Event / Encounter Wake Vortex Encounter
Flight Crew Regained Aircraft Control
Environment - Non Weather Related
I was cleared for a visual approach to Runway 5R at RDU and was told to contact the Tower by the Approach Controller. While no one had recently landed on Runway 5R; there were continuous operations into Runway 5L including a B737 which landed approximately 4 minutes ahead of me and a MD-80 series jet which was adjacent to me when the incident occurred. I was directly on the glideslope for the ILS approximately 1;000 FT AGL when there were a brief couple bumps of moderate turbulence followed about 3 seconds later by several waves of severe turbulence which caused an uncommanded bank of my plane to about 50 degrees right bank. I immediately inputted full left aileron which had no effect as the plane continued to develop increasing bank angle. Then; the turbulence stopped and I was able to recover the plane without further incident. The whole incident probably lasted about 10 seconds. I subsequently landed without incident. I did advise the Tower of the incident after I landed who commented that he was surprised as the preceding planes 'didn't appear high.' I have landed at RDU dozens of times and never experienced anything like this. On a calm night with almost no wind; I can only assume it was wake turbulence but I was surprised to encounter it 1;000 FT in the air from a plane using a parallel runway separated laterally by almost 3;500 FT from the approach I was using. I'm convinced that if it had been much more severe; I may have become inverted and entered an unrecoverable spin.I have never heard a Controller at this airport call a 'caution wake turbulence' warning when a heavy plane is landing on the parallel runway but this experience suggests it is probably warranted in certain situations. It has made me realize that it is probably a good idea for me to always fly a dot or two above the regular glideslope to try to avoid running into similar encounters in the future. I don't think other pilots of small airplanes at RDU routinely do this but it would probably be well advised at any airport with parallel approaches and big planes on the other approach.
C172 pilot reported wake turbulence encounter on approach to RDU from a B737 landing on the parallel runway which resulted in an uncommanded 50-degree bank.