How does a fighter “thump” an intercepted aircraft? In P&amp;E Never Again: A Thump on Final, commercial pilot Mike Mercer describes an encounter with an F–16 shortly before rounding out to land.


  Without warning, the Baron abruptly yawed 15 degrees right, and there was a thunderous noise on the right side of the aircraft. I was standing on the rudder pedals to maintain directional control and managed to keep things more or less aimed at the runway &hellip; On the rollout I got a look at the F–16 in full afterburner climbing back to altitude and turning to circle the field. I concluded immediately that we had been “thumped,” a procedure we used in the military that was designed to rattle and harass the pilot of an intercepted aircraft.


For context according to the linked account, this incident took place inside a VIP TFR that the author flew into unwittingly. His hand plotting and ADS-B display on his EFB led him to believe the TFRs were well north of his destination. Shortly after departure, the author attempted to request but was unable to obtain flight following.

What maneuver does an intercepting fighter perform to “thump” its target? Other than the severe yaw that the author mentioned, what are other typical aerodynamic effects?
'Thumping' is an (unofficial) term for maneuvering the aircraft so that the other (target) aircraft is caught up in its wake. As a practice, it seems quite widespread, atleast during cold war scenarios, and is explained elsewhere:


  Aircrews call it “thumping” — the aviator’s version of a baseball hurler’s brushback pitch. A fighter jet zooms up behind a lumbering reconnaissance craft, then blows past with afterburners blazing, pulling up and away just in front of the larger plane so its jet wash disrupts the airflow around it.


The effect is the same as flying into other aircraft's wake turblence, though the effects may not linger as long as the aircraft passes quite fast (that being the idea- to harass, rather than to cause an accident).

That said, I doubt it was done deliberately in this case as it is quite dangerous to both the aircraft and intercept procedures are quite clearly defined.



Intercept procedure; from FAA media release

Note that it specifically states to be cautious of wake turbulence. Maybe the author got caught in the wake turbulence of the fighter accidentally and it brought back memories of his service days.