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.
I am a Pilot as well, I’ve never seen planes follow that closely, even at Lax there’s plenty of seperation.
Remember the La Guardia Aircraft Crash that ended up in a neighborhood for taking off to quickly after another planes Wake. An Airbus I think.