lowcostdolly: Thanks for the comments and encouragement. I always appreciate hearing anecdotal evidence regarding the strength of planes; lightening strikes are pretty terrifying.
Wxgeek: Thanks for the detailed information and link - truly fascinating stuff. Certainly one of the keys to overcoming any fear is knowledge, and indeed it is reassuring to see such detailed information so readily available.Unfortunately the bulk of my upcoming flightpath falls in one of the few blank spots of their coverage. I do have some questions about this particular chart:
There appears to be a huge CB cloud lingering just above Singapore, with a top at 54,000 feet. Would any planes landing in/taking off from Singapore therefore be required to fly directly through that CB? There appear to be CBs throughout the entire area; surely it wouldn't be possible to fly around/under all of them.
One of the reasons I ask has to do with the AF447 crash from last summer. I often hear it said that turbulence can't bring down a plane, but it seems that this is precisely what happened in this case. Granted there were other contributing factors, but essentially the plane was brought down because of severe turbulence inside a CB. So in cases where it's not possible to fly around a CB (as it appears to be around Singapore at the moment), how safe is it to fly through it?
Thanks again.