Pemaquid From United States of America, joined Aug 2009, 7 posts, RR: 0 Posted (3 years 9 months 6 days 1 hour ago) and read 7211 times:
I'm going PHL-TLV tomorrow (8/22), departing around 9 EST. Even though I fly all the time, I absolutely hate moderate-severe turbulence. Between the jetstream positioned where currently is in the mid-Atlantic, the front pushing off the east coast and Hurricane Bill, it looks like it could be quite a rough ride. Any experienced chart readers out there have any insight into where I should expect the worst of it?
In this chart you will see the yellow dashed boxes over the North Atlantic. There are two areas of forecast TBC. From FL400 to FL250 and from FL380 to FL260. The single pointed arrow in the above the altitudes indicates a forecast of possible Moderate TBC. Otherwise the Atlantic does not look too bad.
The forecast for tomorrow evening will be out later and you can get a better idea of the predicted rides. Generally a hurricane will not produce unusual turbulence, also you have the storm moving into much cooler waters which will hopefully knock some wind out of Bill's sails.
C5LOAD From United States of America, joined Sep 2008, 917 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (3 years 9 months 5 days 22 hours ago) and read 6940 times:
When in a/c is going through turbulence and it starts getting severe, how much altitude does and airplane have to play with. If it's happening all through FL 310-400, does one fly at 300 and use a lot more fuel, or do they just suffer through it?
"But this airplane has 4 engines, it's an entirely different kind of flying! Altogether"
Spacecadet From United States of America, joined Sep 2001, 3251 posts, RR: 14 Reply 6, posted (3 years 9 months 5 days 3 hours ago) and read 6482 times:
Quoting C5LOAD (Reply 5): If it's happening all through FL 310-400, does one fly at 300 and use a lot more fuel, or do they just suffer through it?
It depends on the specifics. Often they will just fly through it. Depends on how bad it is, how long it's expected to last, and how much lower they'd have to be than their target altitude. I've been on planes that did it both ways; on the one hand I flew for hours through moderate turbulence in a UA 757 once (the captain came on to explain why), and on the other I've flown trans-pacific 747's where we literally started out at 32,000 feet and then descended to 28,000 feet to get under turbulence. That's a pretty weird thing, flying trans-pacific at 28,000 feet; like flying around in a DC-7 or something.
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LY777 From France, joined Nov 2005, 2446 posts, RR: 2 Reply 9, posted (3 years 9 months 5 days ago) and read 5121 times:
Quoting Theredbaron (Reply 8): In my experience Atlantic turbulence is not that bad, I fear more when traveling to japan or Korea fron the US west coast.
I had a terrible turbulence flight experience over the Atlantic, off North Carolina IIRC onboard an AF A343, from MIA to CDG. We thought the a/c was falling... TERRIBLE
Usually they will climb, though. I've been on short flights at FL410 (although still turbulent sometimes).
There's no "usually" to it. Whether you climb or descend depends on the conditions at the time. Many things come into play, like atmospheric conditions (there's no "magic altitude" to get you out of it), aircraft performance, wind speed/direction, etc.
Spacecadet From United States of America, joined Sep 2001, 3251 posts, RR: 14 Reply 11, posted (3 years 9 months 4 days 16 hours ago) and read 4847 times:
There's only so high an airliner can go at any given time, though. A loaded 747 on the beginning of a trans-pacific (or trans-atlantic) flight is not gonna get to 41,000 feet. They usually cruise as high as they realistically can, within a couple thousand feet - and in my experience that's 30-32k for the first hour or two. They can't really go higher if there's turbulence, so often they'll try to go lower. I have been in situations where they've obviously pushed the step climb a little quicker than planned, which is also kind of wild, because then you end up with a noticeably high AoA (higher than normal, anyway). But still, they can't do that immediately.
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