ELAC -
How about sticking to what you know?
I'd be willing to bet your fine Deisel 8 probably didn't have as much a of margin at the altitudes you routinely chose in similar conditions, unless you liked flying around in the 20's. And if you did, I'll bet you saw a lot more bouncing around than most of your colleagues.
[Thank you for your reply, but it's actually DIESEL...picky, picky]
Well, I don't know everything, but I know/knew enough to avoid areas such as the one in question by enough margin that I never really had to worry about it. Did I burn a lot of extra fuel? You bet I did, and we all got home with a safe, smooth ride. And, I did NOT choose those altitudes that did not provide the margin I felt necessary. This is far from an exact science and the sooner some pilots realize that, the better off we'll all be.
As to the remark about flying in the 20's. I once flew from ORD to LNK (about 400 nm) at TEN thousand feet to avoid the chop that EVERYONE was complaining about at just about ALL of the higher altitudes. We never got a ripple. All ya gotta do is listen to others and experience it yourself to know.
And:
One could make the argument that, possibly, the incident might have been avoided if only the aircraft was flying at a higher level.
One could make the argument that, possibly, the incident might have been avoided if only the aircraft.....had avoided the area completely.