AIRCRAFT STORIES - Turbulence: Everything you need and want to know

• NOVEMBER 10, 2014 3:28PM

No turbulence here. Source: ThinkStock

TURBULENCE is, in many people’s opinion, the hands-down scariest part of flying — and yet we’ve always heard it’s nothing to worry about.

But when the plane bumps hard enough to send potato chips soaring like miniature eagles, isn’t something wrong? What IS turbulence, anyway?

Answer: it’s random.

“Turbulence can’t be predicted,” says Larry Cornman, a turbulence specialist with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. “A pilot can’t predict what’s going to happen in a few minutes, or in a few seconds, even.”

Turbulence, he explains, comes from many sources: jet streams of fast-moving air, thunderstorms (either near OR far from the plane) and wind whipping over mountains then crashing down the other side.

The best way to imagine it, says Cornman, is as an eddy in a stream — those little pockets where water rolls over rocks on an otherwise smooth surface. These turbulence eddies range from about the size of a plane to about five times the size of a plane, according to Cornman.

But because pilots can’t see air — and because storms can impact air up to 100 miles away from their origins — there is not a hard-and-fast way for pilots to know when they’ll encounter turbulence in a flight.

Not feeling better yet? Hold on.

Really, it’s not that terrifying. Source: ThinkStock

Pilots work really hard to prepare for turbulence

A pilot’s job in avoiding turbulence starts the instant he wakes up, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who famously landed a plane in the Hudson River following a bird strike, tells us.

Sully — and all good pilots, he says — checks the weather before he leaves the house and scans the sky on the drive to the airport, looking for clouds. (Saucer-shaped clouds mean air is being forced over mountains. And puffy cumulonimbus clouds? Those are thunderstorms.) Then, he’ll check his radar in-flight and listen to his radio, hearing other pilots discuss which altitudes they’ve flown that day for clear air.

Because there’s not a whole lot they can do to foresee turbulence, pilots’ brains are always spinning. “You build mental models before you even get to work,” Sully says. “As pilots, we work very hard not to be surprised by anything.”

And they make adjustments to avoid it

To avoid turbulence, Sully says pilots have two options: they can ascend or descend in search of “clearer air,” or they can slow down to minimise that bumpy feeling.

Either way, decisions are usually made spur-of-the-moment, right there in the cockpit. “We either hear reports [on the radio] from flights ahead of us, or we see conditions ahead that might be conducive to turbulence,” says Sully. “Much of it is real-time decision making.”

During turbulence, your plane isn’t “bumping” around, it’s just speeding up and slowing down

“In most turbulence, what you feel is a sudden acceleration,” Sully says. “People describe it as falling, but that’s just their perceptive sensors misleading them.” While a plane can jar a few feet up or down in the air, he says, most of the time you’re just feeling a speed change caused by wind drafts.

Different types of turbulence cause planes to move in different ways, so no seat is guaranteed the smoothest ride. But, as Cornman explains, a plane will pitch — or rotate around its centre of gravity — least near its wings.

On a wing and a prayer. Source: ThinkStock

It’s extremely unlikely you’ll get hurt during turbulence

“It’s a virtual certainty that you’re not going to be injured,” says Sully ... provided you’re wearing your seatbelt. Everyone we’ve spoken with — a scientist, pilot and flight attendant — said wearing a seatbelt is a nearly foolproof way to stay safe during turbulence. It’s all you can do, and it’s all you need.

Only 11 passengers were injured during turbulence in 2013, and as Cornman points out, injuries tend to occur only when people unbuckle. “You’re not going to get injured if you’re strapped in,” he explains. “You’re just going to get bounced around.”

And there’s a way you can get over your turbulence fear, too

Sully gives his passengers a simple assignment: Next time you’re riding in a car, close your eyes. Focus on every bump, jive and jostle the car encounters on the road. A plane is just the same — trips, by nature, are rarely completely smooth.

“We know how cars work, so we’ve become desensitised to it,” Sully says. “But car rides are typically much bumpier than flights.”

This article was written by Suzy Strutner from Huffington Post and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

Source: http://www.news.com.au/