Severe Turbulence
One of the questions that I ask of my colleagues on almost every flight is if they have ever encountered severe turbulence. It is always interesting to hear of the responses. Often most everyone says that they have at least one or two experiences with it.
Airline operation manuals describe severe turbulence differently I have discovered (mine has general criteria up to extreme) and this often causes some rather odd comments--particulary over the North Atlantic. It seems that some aviatiors spend ever moment of their crossing with the fleshy part of their finger pressed against the transmit switch to question anyone who has made a severe call--something that I find a bit presumptious that another aircraft can determine what conditions a flight is encountering miles away...
I can remember a couple of years ago hearing a severe call from a Lufthansa flight as he was being passed over from Moncton Center to Gander. Immediately another flight was asking Moncton where the position of the Lufthansa flight was that "had lost control." Well, you can imagine that the controller was in disbelief as well as everyone else in the air who thought this guy was not someone you would like to fly with.
An equal calibre person-to-avoid was one I heard a few years past grilling a biz jet over 30 West over his call. Not asking exact position of flight level, this guy was sharply demanding "how badly his aircraft had been damaged?" When the Biz pilot repsonded that he was not aware on any external damage he took a tongue lashing about knowing the "definition" of severe. It was only after the hapless pilot described flying an aircraft with a known high wing loading and deep excursions into both the high and low speed buffet and inability at times to read ANY of the instruments that our resident atmospheric expert piped down.
Question 1: Why are some pilots so disbelieving in the idea of severe turbulence? It does NOT mean that the aircraft is totally out of control. I have always thought it is was simply "that was something I never want to have to fly through again and that you would not want others follow you into." I have had carts knocked over in the aft galley and have heard those reports through the years of broken bones etc. Is that something one would wish others to fly through by simply calling it "moderate?"
Question 2: What have been some of the PPruner's experience with severe? There must be some pretty eye-opening stories out there.
Last edited by Uncle Fred; 24th Sep 2009 at 19:08.