Narrative:

We took off from full length on 25L. An A320 took off immediately before us from 25L/F. We were cleared for takeoff while he was probably 4000' down the runway. I waited until he was airborne before applying power. We were reduced thrust and quite heavy; but I did push the power up about 2%N1 after thrust lock as a mitigation. It wasn't enough as at about 1000' we encountered his wake. It would have spilled coffee so I classify it as moderate. Probably no more than 10 degrees bank but I did use about half yoke deflection more than 2 times. Lots of induced uncoordinated yawing; though I keep my feet on rudder pedals and I think that dampens much of the yawing. I lowered the pitch a bit and added some thrust. I also delayed flap retraction call. We were in the wake for about 10 seconds. No injuries and everyone was in his/her seats just due to phase of flight. Winds were basically calm and air was smooth. The wake probably was less than 40 seconds old and probably had little decay due to low eddy dissipation rate conditions. We were [on] RNAV course and I assume same as his course though I don't recall his takeoff clearance. I reported the encounter as a moderate wake encounter to socal. Had we been an rj; it would have been 'sporty.' I was surprised by the severity of the encounter behind a similar sized airplane. Socal told us he would let tower know and later he said tower would give more spacing. Later; a flight attendant told me that was a bit scary. I think the dutch roll sensations and the smooth--not smooth--smooth nature of an encounter is concerning to the passengers and flight attendants.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B737NG Captain reported encountering moderate wake turbulence departing LAX in trail of an A320.

Narrative: We took off from full length on 25L. An A320 took off immediately before us from 25L/F. We were cleared for takeoff while he was probably 4000' down the runway. I waited until he was airborne before applying power. We were reduced thrust and quite heavy; but I did push the power up about 2%N1 after thrust lock as a mitigation. It wasn't enough as at about 1000' we encountered his wake. It would have spilled coffee so I classify it as moderate. Probably no more than 10 degrees bank but I did use about half yoke deflection more than 2 times. Lots of induced uncoordinated yawing; though I keep my feet on rudder pedals and I think that dampens much of the yawing. I lowered the pitch a bit and added some thrust. I also delayed flap retraction call. We were in the wake for about 10 seconds. No injuries and everyone was in his/her seats just due to phase of flight. Winds were basically calm and air was smooth. The wake probably was less than 40 seconds old and probably had little decay due to low eddy dissipation rate conditions. We were [on] RNAV course and I assume same as his course though I don't recall his takeoff clearance. I reported the encounter as a moderate wake encounter to SOCAL. Had we been an RJ; it would have been 'sporty.' I was surprised by the severity of the encounter behind a similar sized airplane. SoCal told us he would let Tower know and later he said Tower would give more spacing. Later; a flight attendant told me that was a bit scary. I think the dutch roll sensations and the smooth--not smooth--smooth nature of an encounter is concerning to the passengers and flight attendants.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.